An Army colonel fired in October as the garrison commander for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, was found not guilty of drunk driving and disorderly conduct charges that prompted his relief of command.
A federal jury acquitted Army Col. Anthony Bianchi of the two more serious charges he faced after being arrested last July for driving through West Point’s Thayer Gate without showing his identification to military police.The jury found him guilty of running a stop sign, one of his attorneys told Task & Purpose on Wednesday.
Police claimed that Bianchi had been “verbally abusive to wait staff” at the military academy’s Eisenhower Hall earlier in the evening, court documents say.
On Sept. 13, a jury found Bianchi not guilty of charges stemming from those incidents, but he was found guilty of failing to stop at a stop sign at Thayer Gate and ordered to pay a fine of $150, according to the court documents, which were posted on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, or PACER.
“Last week marked the end of a 13-month period of uncertainty for my family,” Bianchi said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “The last year has been marked by a persistent feeling of stress and dread, a crushing financial burden, and a lingering feeling of embarrassment and shame for me and my family. Even after being ostracized personally and professionally, I’ve concluded that much of the strife has been unnecessary – I feel personally and professionally vindicated through this verdict, and I’m looking forward to now being able to focus on transitioning into retirement with this fully behind me.”
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Bianchi was initially charged with misusing a government vehicle to drive from his home to the military’s Eisenhower Hall for a personal function and then to the Thayer Hotel for drinks, but that charge was later dropped, said John L. Buckheit, his lead defense attorney.
In a quirk of legal jurisdiction applicable to some military legal cases, the charges Bianchi faced were under New York state laws, but his trial was held in a federal courtroom under the Assimilative Crimes Act, which “makes state law applicable to conduct occurring on lands reserved or acquired by the Federal government.” West Point is a federal government military installation.
On the night Bianchi was arrested, Buckheit said, the colonel refused to take a breathalyzer test. A New York State Department of Motor Vehicles administrative judge later determined that military police had improperly handled their request to test his blood-alcohol content, ruling, “Respondent was hauled from his residence two hours after an incident at West Point without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment by friends recruited by MPs to coax him out.”
Military.com first reported on Monday that Bianchi had been acquitted of the drunken driving and disorderly conduct charges.
A disputed night
The night that ended Bianchi’s tenure at West Point began with police summoned to a dining hall and ended hours later after the same police officers saw Bianchi driving through a base gate.
On July 22, 2023, the Provost Marshal’s Office at West point dispatched two military police officers to Eisenhower Hall around 8:40 p.m. after receiving a call about a verbal argument between Bianchi and the wait staff, court records say.
Police said Bianchi “was upset over the food he was served and was verbally aggressive to [the waiter] and threatened to fire him,” court records say. One of the officers said they saw Bianchi drink “what appeared to be an alcoholic beverage,” smelled alcohol on Bianchi’s breath and noticed that his speech was slurred.
Around 12:38 a.m. on July 23, 2023, both military police officers were at Thayer Gate when Bianchi drove through the gate without showing his identification, and he then allegedly drove through a stop sign without stopping, according to the court records.
At 1:35 a.m., the provost marshal and two of Bianchi’s colleagues arrived at Bianchi’s home, according to court records. Two subordinates asked him to speak with military police, and he was taken to the police station, where he refused to have his blood-alcohol content tested and asked to speak to a lawyer. He was arrested for suspected drunken driving and read his rights at 3:50 a.m.
Bianchi again refused to have his blood-alcohol content test after receiving an order from the military police commander at 4:40 a.m., even though he was threatened with being charged with failing to obey an order under the Uniform Code of Military Justice if he did not comply, the court records say. He was later released and suspended as garrison commander shortly afterward.
One of the military police officers later testified at Bianchi’s trial that he did not see any signs that Bianchi was intoxicated at Thayer Gate, and he did not have probable cause to stop Bianchi after he drove through the gate, according to a partial transcript of the proceedings obtained by Task & Purpose.
In his statement to Task & Purpose, Bianchi acknowledged that he had consumed alcohol on the night of July 22, 2023, “But it was much earlier in the evening and the credible evidence offered at trial didn’t support the government’s accusation.”
Bianchi said he has submitted his request to retire and is awaiting the Army’s response.
According to his official biography from the Army, Bianchi was commissioned as an artillery officer out of West Point in 1997. He deployed to Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2012. Prior to serving as garrison commander at West Point, Bianchi had been a professor there in the Department of Systems Engineering. He has also been awarded a Bronze Star, the Army Achievement Medal and Army Commendation Medal, among others.
“I’ve had a long and gratifying career leading and caring for our nation’s finest and I have no regrets,” Bianchi said. “I hold no grudges against the service or the U.S. Military Academy, an institution I’ve proudly supported and loved since my graduation in 1997.”
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