The U.S. Army has charged Travis King with quite a few crimes, including desertion and, most shockingly, child pornography.
From The Western Journal:
NBC reported that the Army has accused King of “soliciting a Snapchat user to produce child pornography and possessing a video of what appears to be a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”
King spent more than two months in North Korean custody before being handed over to U.S. officials in China. He returned to the U.S. on Sept. 28 and is now in pretrial confinement at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Franklin D. Rosenblatt, lead counsel for King’s legal team, will argue against keeping his client detained.
“I think we just have to tread really carefully when we take people who have returned from captivity and decide we’re just going to throw the book at them and put them in pretrial confinement,” Rosenblatt said, per NBC.
According to Reuters, King joined the Army in January 2021. His desertion to Communist North Korea constitutes only one of several troubling episodes in his brief Army career.
For instance, King spent more than a month in South Korean detention for what Reuters called “assault and destroying public property for damaging a police car during a profanity-laced tirade against Koreans.” Additionally, the report noted that King assaulted his fellow soldiers.
The Army has also charged King with attempting to escape from U.S. military custody in Oct. 2022.
I think most of us figured that King was involved in something pretty serious for him to go running to North Korea, but I would've never suspected this.
