Nearly a year after Navy officials said they were planning on taking disciplinary actions against three officers for their roles in the death of Navy SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen, the lawyer for one officer says that their case is finally heading toward something resembling a trial.
Capt. Bradley Geary, the then-leader of the command that runs the Navy SEAL BUD/s training program, is now facing a board of inquiry in the coming days, his lawyer confirmed to Military.com on Wednesday.
Geary was initially told last fall that the Navy planned to take him, as well as his boss and the command's top doctor, to admiral's mast -- a nonjudicial form of punishment -- over their roles in Mullen's death. However, Geary's lawyer, Jason Wareham, told Military.com that they refused the proceeding, arguing that he wouldn't receive a fair hearing.
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Since masts like the ones Geary was set to face are nonjudicial punishments -- they don't involve many due-process protections or a jury -- service members have the right to refuse them.
In a letter shared with Military.com, Wareham told Rear Adm. Keith Davids, the commander of Naval Special Warfare, in December that they refused the mast because they had a "strong reason to believe a guilty verdict has been predetermined." Wareham also argued that the command retaliated against Geary by assigning him extra work to limit his preparation time for the proceeding and restricting what evidence he could review.
Typically, if a service member refuses a mast, it forces the commanders to either drop the charges or refer them to a court-martial, a formal legal proceeding that not only raises the standard of evidence but also affords a defendant more latitude in defending themselves.
According to Wareham, Geary is instead headed for something in between -- a board of inquiry.
"I call them quasi-criminal proceedings," Wareham said, noting that, while they are not a court, they are still governed by federal rules and "they carry such significant consequences ... more consequences than you may find in some criminal courts, as far as financial impacts and long-reaching collateral consequences."
"In that strict administrative process, they have the ability to retire us as other than honorable and demote us in our retirement, which ... those have lifelong consequences associated with them," Geary told Military.com in an interview Wednesday.
"It's a very, very strange way for them to use this administrative system that they will continue to tell you is not punitive, but it really is in practice," he added.
Military.com reached out to Naval Special Warfare Command but did not immediately receive a reply.
The Navy is charging that Geary failed in following orders and doing his duty when he "negligently failed to provide appropriate medical support during high-risk training evolutions and ensure medical personnel were properly trained and equipped," and this negligence resulted "in death and grievous bodily harm," according to Wareham, who was unable to provide the formal notice because it was designated "Controlled Unclassified Information."
The Navy also argues that Geary failed "to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership," given the findings of one of two investigations into Mullen's death.
Mullen, 24, died of acute pneumonia shortly after completing the first, brutal portion of SEAL training known as "Hell Week" on Feb. 4, 2022. His death would give rise to two investigations.
The first investigation was conducted by Naval Special Warfare Command itself and revealed major problems at the legendary training program. It determined that Mullen died of pneumonia but that his condition was aggravated by an enlarged heart.
However, a second investigation, this time conducted by a Navy command that was completely separate from the SEAL community, revealed even more troubling issues with the culture at the schoolhouse.
Investigators said they found that the staff at the training facility was overzealous and ran largely unchecked, while students were so determined to pass that they would either lie to doctors or turn to doping.
That second investigation also focused on Geary and his leadership since he had been made aware of problems with the program that were leading to more recruits than usual being dropped from the course.
According to investigators, at the time, Geary largely chalked it up to the fact that "the current generation had less mental toughness" and made deliberate decisions to reduce the role of the school's civilian instructors -- veteran SEALs put in place to be a check on the less experienced and sometimes overzealous active-duty instructors.
Geary fought back against the characterizations shortly after the report was made public in May.
In the wake of the report, Geary went public with his version of events and criticism of the investigation, giving interviews to "Good Morning America", Fox News and The New York Post, among others.
He specifically argued that the quote about the next generation being weak was incorrect. Geary told The Post that "those were not my words. I never said that."
Asked Wednesday whether he still stands by his critiques of the investigation, Geary said that he feels "even stronger toward those positions."
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