Lawyers representing US soldier who crossed into North Korea are in plea negotiations with prosecutors

By Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The legal team representing Pvt. Travis King, the US soldier who ran across the border from South to North Korea last year, is in plea negotiations with military prosecutors, according to King’s attorney.

King was expected to appear for a preliminary hearing in a military court, on Tuesday at Fort Bliss, Texas, but it was delayed according to a spokeswoman for the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel. The spokeswoman said the delay was requested by King’s defense counsel and OSTC didn’t object. Rosenblatt told CNN in a phone call on Tuesday that while his team sent the email requesting the delay, it was the result of a joint request from both sides as negotiations are ongoing.

“We are negotiating a resolution and because of that, no need to have the [Article 32 hearing] right now,” Rosenblatt said, adding that the Article 32 hearing has been delayed for two weeks and would likely not be necessary if a plea agreement is reached.

King is facing eight charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including desertion, possession of child pornography, assaulting a noncommissioned officer, and disobeying a superior officer. His case was taken over by the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel — a new office within each of the military services that handles the prosecution of crimes such as murder, sexual assault, kidnapping and domestic violence — on July 10, the spokesperson for the office, Michelle McCaskill, told CNN.

Rosenblatt declined to provide details of the plea agreement which was first reported by Stars & Stripes.

A spokesperson for OSTC declined to comment on the possibility of a plea deal but said prosecutors did not object to delaying the Article 32 hearing.

Roughly a week before fleeing into North Korea in July 2023, King had been released from a detention facility in South Korea, where he’d been held over after an October 2022 incident in which he allegedly pushed and punched a victim in the face at a club in Seoul. The day he crossed the border into North Korea, King was supposed to have boarded a flight back to Texas, but he instead left the airport after US Army escorts left him at the security checkpoint.

King was returned to US custody last September.

Since his return, Rosenblatt said King spent three weeks at the Defense Department’s reintegration center, run by US Army South in San Antonio, Texas. He then went to Fort Bliss; when he arrived, Rosenblatt said, King was ordered into pre-trial confinement where he has remained since October 18.

He is now being held in a detention center in New Mexico that is run by a company contracted by the Army, Rosenblatt said.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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