- Allison Bailey was a North Valleys Excessive pupil who joined the Nevada Nationwide Guard at age 17.
- The Guard launched a misconduct investigation towards her that led to demotion and an “aside from honorable” discharge in January.
- Bailey says a fellow Guard member raped her. Her bodily and psychological well being deteriorated, and he or she died March 4, six weeks after her discharge.
Underneath the course of its chief Maj. Gen. Ondra Berry, the Nevada Nationwide Guard launched a zero-tolerance marketing campaign in January 2021 to handle sexual assault. It inspired troopers to report rape regardless of how a lot time had handed and vowed to help them.
That very same month, Sgt. First Class Allison Bailey reported being raped twice the earlier Could and June by a fellow Guardsman of decrease rank.
The North Valleys Excessive Faculty pupil had been steadily rising by way of the ranks ever since enlisting in Reno for the Nevada Nationwide Guard at age 17, when she was nonetheless so younger that her Air Power veteran mom needed to signal for her.
She was a trusted member of the service. The commander of her unit – the medical detachment – is predicated in Reno, however the unit is situated in Las Vegas, the place Bailey was its senior noncommissioned officer there.
Bailey’s rape claims weren’t believed. As an alternative, her alleged rapist was believed when he stated the 2 sexual encounters had been consensual.
Her final efficiency overview earlier than the alleged rapes stated she had exceeded expectations, was a natural-born chief and must be promoted earlier than her friends.
After siding together with her alleged attacker, the Nevada Nationwide Guard used what occurred between them because the no. 1 cost in a 22-item misconduct investigation: “Intercourse with a subordinate.”
“I really feel as if I’m being punished for being sexually assaulted,” Bailey wrote in an April 2021 e-mail for Berry.
Bailey’s psychological and bodily well being worsened. She began the method for a medical discharge.
Bailey obtained mediocre after which damaging efficiency critiques after years of optimistic ones.
She was demoted for misconduct.
On Jan. 15, 2023, she was kicked out of the Nevada Nationwide Guard with an “aside from honorable” discharge.
Six weeks later, Bailey collapsed and died – a loss of life her household hyperlinks to the Guard’s actions following her alleged rapes.
“I watched her deteriorate over the course of the ordeal with the Nevada Nationwide Guard,” stated her mom, Felicia Cavanaugh, from her Reno residence.
The navy lawyer who defended Bailey towards the misconduct claims was so appalled by what occurred to her, he resigned from the Nevada Nationwide Guard.
“I misplaced religion within the commanders and, ultimately, within the navy justice system,” Capt. Christopher Tinsman stated.
Nevada Nationwide Guard public affairs officer Capt. Emerson Marcus stated he understands why some folks really feel pissed off with how sexual assault circumstances are charged and prosecuted.
“We empathize with all victims,” he stated in an e-mail. “Within the case of Ms. Bailey, the Nevada Nationwide Guard did all the things in its energy to help her in coming ahead and ensured procedures in place – together with an investigation by the Nevada Division of Public Security – had been adopted appropriately.”
Not desirous to report rape
Allison Bailey didn’t wish to report being raped. She didn’t even wish to speak about it.
It took her greater than two months to inform her boyfriend, Sam Boyd.
He’s additionally within the Nevada Nationwide Guard. They crossed paths when he returned from his third tour – this one among Afghanistan – in 2016.
By 2017, they had been dwelling collectively in a Las Vegas home together with her two sons from a earlier relationship.
“She was very hesitant to report the sexual assault,” Boyd stated. “She knew it was gonna be robust.”
Sandy Duchac stated it’s particularly troublesome for these within the navy to come back ahead about rape as a result of they’ve been educated to belief and defend their fellow troopers with their lives.
Duchac is a Navy veteran and vp of Veteran Sisters, a bunch that helps survivors of navy sexual trauma, and he or she’d been working with Bailey to get her other-than-honorable discharge upgraded.
“She thought of it a last-ditch nuclear possibility,” Duchac stated of reporting sexual assault.
Bailey believed it might damage her attacker’s profession within the navy and possibly harm others within the chain of command, Duchac stated.
“So she didn’t wish to do it,” Duchac stated. “She cherished the Guard.”
However after the Nevada Nationwide Guard launched a misconduct investigation towards Bailey on Jan. 4, 2021, based mostly on nameless complaints about her management conduct, she filed an official report of sexual assault three weeks later.
Col. Kevin Remus stated he finds the truth that Bailey didn’t come ahead till after the misconduct case opened to be suspicious. He gives authorized overview for all sexual assault studies within the Nevada Nationwide Guard. He was additionally the prosecuting lawyer within the listening to over whether or not to discharge Bailey for dangerous conduct.
“None of this is dropped at our consideration till she was within the sizzling seat,” Remus stated of Bailey’s rape report. “And that is the half that disturbs me probably the most: the timing.”
Remus expressed sympathy for the accused Guardsman “simply considering he’s having a consensual affair with someone” and immediately he’s dealing with a 25-to-life crime.
He pointed to screenshots of pornographic-sounding textual content messages from the police investigation indicating she was a keen participant.
“You possibly can see 70 pages of very express textual content messages between Bailey and the male that might make it exhausting for anybody to imagine it was not a consensual relationship,” he stated.
Boyd stated she was ready for such reactions.
“She knew she was gonna be referred to as a liar, that individuals had been going to come back at her and never imagine her,” he stated. “And he or she simply stored going. She held her floor all through this whole course of.”
Police investigation into alleged rapes
As quickly as Bailey formally reported being raped Jan. 29, 2021, the misconduct investigation was placed on maintain.
To keep away from bias, Nevada regulation requires a 3rd celebration deal with Nevada Nationwide Guard sexual assault circumstances. The state police – formally referred to as the Nevada Division of Public Security – has the unique contract.
Detective Kyle McKnight interviewed Bailey about what she says had been rapes by the identical man at two alcohol-fueled events about eight months earlier.
McKnight additionally talked to her boyfriend and two different individuals who stated Bailey instructed them concerning the assaults not lengthy after.
Her alleged attacker was additionally interviewed. The RGJ is just not naming the Guardsman as a result of he was by no means charged within the case.
He supplied screenshots of textual content messages to help his competition that the intercourse with Bailey on the events was consensual.
McKnight’s abstract of the interview says her alleged attacker “consented to a full forensic obtain of his cellphone.” Nevertheless, he later rescinded that consent and wouldn’t flip over his telephone.
After getting a search warrant, McKnight seized the telephone however the Guardsman wouldn’t reveal its passcode to permit the state police to confirm whether or not the textual content messages had been actual.
McKnight later wrote, “The forensic obtain was unable to get well the textual content messages between (REDACTED) and Bailey.”
The state police didn’t say Bailey had not been raped. The conclusion was that nobody had been situated who witnessed the alleged rapes besides the 2 events concerned and that no different proof could possibly be situated displaying that rapes occurred.
McKnight’s remaining report – dated June 9, 2021, nearly precisely one yr after the alleged rapes – ended: “Investigation closed, inadequate proof for prosecution.”
Based on the Rape, Abuse & Incest Nationwide Community, out of each 1,000 situations of rape, solely 13 circumstances will get referred to a prosecutor.
Misconduct investigation and a declare of bias
The textual content messages had been a part of the proof used towards Bailey that led to her discharge.
In his attraction of the misconduct findings, her protection counsel, Tinsman, highlighted that the state police couldn’t confirm them and that there are quite a few on-line companies capable of generate realistic-looking pretend textual content threads.
However bias was the primary level of his attraction.
When Bailey came upon who’d been appointed investigating officer in her misconduct case, “I instantly requested for one more as a result of there isn’t any means she couldn’t be biased as she was superb buddies with (the alleged attacker) and his spouse, going over for breakfast and many others.,” she wrote in a doc discovered on her telephone after her loss of life.
Tinsman additionally requested that the investigating officer get replaced. This didn’t occur.
Remus stated it was “not true” the investigator knew the alleged rapist properly.
“There isn’t a proof of bias,” he stated.
“The Nevada Nationwide Guard is just not an enormous group. Folks could know one another, however I do not agree with that evaluation in any respect. So far as I do know, the alleged perpetrator and the person who investigated – I do not know in the event that they’re good buddies or something like that. I learn an investigation – the proof supported its conclusions and that is what issues.”
Dwight Stirling stated there is a elementary rule of equity within the JAG Corps, the navy’s authorized arm, that an investigating officer should be neutral and unbiased.
Stirling teaches regulation on the College of Southern California, is a retired JAG officer within the California Nationwide Guard, and is founder and CEO of the Heart for Legislation and Army Coverage, a suppose tank devoted to strengthening authorized protections of troopers.
“When there’s even a whisper of bias by the investigating officer, the one correct treatment is to exchange that individual with somebody who is just not biased,” he stated.
Deterioration of profession and well being
Bailey’s discharge was not distinctive to the Nevada Nationwide Guard.
A 2016 Division of Protection Inspector Normal report checked out greater than 15,000 sexual assault studies within the navy over the earlier six years. It discovered that one-third of these making the declare had been discharged, usually inside seven months of submitting a report.
“When a lady within the navy is sexually assaulted,” stated Duchac of Veteran Sisters, “she’s betrayed 3 times: by the brother in arms who raped her, by her chain of command that blames her or ignores her, and by the American individuals who simply don’t wish to know.”
Along with the psychological toll a sexual assault can have, it additionally steadily results in long-term results on the physique.
Sibelia Chaiyahat stated abdomen points, complications and a racing coronary heart are frequent. She’s a licensed social employee with a Ph.D. in psychology who works with veterans who’ve PTSD at her clinic in Oceanside, California. She has a deal with sexual trauma.
“In the event you develop PTSD – which is what occurs if you aren’t getting the chance to course of trauma – it might result in critical bodily issues,” she stated.
After Bailey stated she was raped, her psychological and bodily well being started a downward spiral.
Tinsman, who defended her towards the misconduct expenses, had an workplace close to Bailey on the Las Vegas base and knew her for fairly some time.
“By the point she grew to become a shopper, she was a unique individual,” he stated.
She had been the kind of officer you would sense was in cost and knew what she was doing, Tinsman stated, however she grew to become a shell of former herself.
“She appeared like somebody who had been beneath assault,” he stated. “I don’t imply essentially a bodily assault, however that her psyche or no matter had been attacked to the purpose of her being a smaller individual than she’d been earlier than.”
This was mirrored in her efficiency critiques.
Earlier than reporting rape, her evaluations stated she “exemplified (the) which means of professionalism,” “outperformed” noncommissioned officers above her and had “limitless potential.”
After reporting rape, an analysis stated she “had issue in controlling her feelings,” “allowed her private points to overshadow her efficiency” and “confirmed no effort to view her troublesome state of affairs as a possibility to raised her efficiency.”
Bailey was absolutely conscious of the adjustments in herself.
“My psychological well being rapidly deteriorated since I used to be assaulted,” she wrote in a word discovered on her telephone.
She referenced a analysis she’d obtained at a Las Vegas psychological well being clinic for post-traumatic stress dysfunction.
“I used to be recognized with PTSD and evening terrors together with elevated anxiousness treatment,” she stated.
“I’ve gained and misplaced over 50 kilos, I’ve misplaced 75% of my hair. I began having seizures and excessive worry of leaving my home.”
She was additionally fearful about how her transformation was affecting her sons, who Boyd stated had been crucial issues on this planet to her.
“My kids have needed to watch their mom turn into another human being that nobody desires to be sucked into and be round,” Bailey wrote. “The rape fails compared to what I’ve been by way of since.”
See additionally:What occurs when a sexual assault is reported in Nevada Nationwide Guard?
Extra:2019 change to Nevada regulation stored Guard soldier from having case heard in court docket
Allison Bailey’s loss of life
On March 4, six weeks after the dangerous conduct discharge, Bailey collapsed on her kitchen flooring in Las Vegas.
She was discovered by her two sons, ages 10 and 15, and brought to a hospital, the place she died.
Her loss of life certificates says her coronary heart and lungs stopped after her blood stress dangerously dropped.
A 3rd listed trigger was superior hepatitis cirrhosis, which is commonly linked to heavy alcohol consumption.
“I am not going to fake she didn’t drink,” her mom stated.
What she didn’t know was that her daughter had additionally began on a number of drugs for despair, anxiousness and evening terrors, Cavanaugh stated.
The mixture of 5 prescriptions plus a number of Tylenol for frequent complications could be a stressor on the liver and kidneys.
An post-mortem was not carried out. Due to this, it’s not potential to know for positive how a lot the assorted components – alcohol, excessive ranges of treatment and PTSD – performed a job.
“All I can say is she went from a wholesome, outgoing extrovert to an introvert who would not depart the home and suffered from extreme anxiousness and despair,” Cavanaugh stated.
Bailey wouldn’t search assist for her weakening physique as a result of she thought she had no well being care.
“She instructed me, ‘I can’t go to the physician as a result of I can’t afford it,’” Cavanaugh stated.
The Guard confirmed that when somebody is other-than-honorably discharged, their well being protection ends.
Simply earlier than Bailey’s loss of life, Cavanaugh was touring again from South Carolina together with her husband.
In a final video name together with her daughter, “I stated, ‘Honey, you don’t look good. We’re gonna be there in two days, and we’re going to take you to the hospital.’”
They by no means obtained the prospect.
“They not solely took her life for my part,” she stated of the Nevada Nationwide Guard, “they took the final 2 1/2 years of her life as properly.”
Defending troopers who report sexual assault
April is Sexual Assault Consciousness month.
In preparation, the Nevada Nationwide Guard has held a number of conferences to date this yr. It has posted fliers with QR codes and the contact data for its sexual assault response staff in armories and workplace areas across the state.
“The Nevada Nationwide Guard is working exhausting to convey consciousness to sexual assault and to help its members who report it,” Guard spokesperson Marcus stated.
“We actually have modified lots since Gen. Berry took over” in September 2019, he added.
Cavanaugh stated she is going to imagine the Guard is really supporting and defending troopers who report sexual assault when she sees what Berry does in regard to her daughter’s case. One of many first issues she did after Bailey died final month was to put in writing him.
“I requested him to do a full investigation of all of the proceedings when my daughter filed her grievance: how her grievance was dealt with and the way the complaints towards her had been dealt with,” she stated.
“I feel an out of doors company ought to do it.”
She desires her daughter’s rank restored to what it was when she filed her sexual assault declare and for her discharge classification to be upgraded to honorable – “as a result of she served honorably and so her sons get their advantages.”
Cavanaugh hasn’t stopped there. She’s been emailing everybody else she will be able to consider, from Nevada’s congressional delegation to the Pentagon.
She doesn’t suppose any soldier who information a sexual assault declare ought to must undergo what her daughter did.
“She’s not alone,” Cavanaugh stated. “And he or she is not going to be the final if a full investigation would not occur and persons are held accountable.”
Mark Robison covers native authorities for the Reno Gazette-Journal. This story is made potential by the nonprofit RGJ Fund, which pays 100% of Mark Robison’s wages. In the event you’d prefer to see extra tales like this one,please contemplate donating. Share your feedback with him atmrobison@rgj.com.
