On June 4, 2017, Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Jamie Morris was awakened in his embassy housing room in Bamako, Mali, by pounding on his door.
When he responded, he discovered the hallway was filled with people frantically trying to resuscitate a fellow Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, who ultimately died from a hazing attack — a crime for which four special operators were convicted.
Morris, who had previously been deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Germany, and Africa, spoke to Melgar on the night of his tragic death.
“I asked where the rest of the guys were,” Morris told Fox News Digital, “and he explained to me that he ditched them on the way to a party that they were all supposed to go to.”
Morris was never accused of participating in the hazing event, nor was he ever charged in his death — but he was investigated in connection to the crime.
(Video: Fox News Digital)
Navy SEAL, Adam Matthews, who was charged with “murder, involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, hazing, obstruction of justice and more,” according to Military Times, testified during his plea deal in 2019 that another SEAL, Tony DeDolph, received permission for the hazing from Morris after waking him up.
Morris denied the exchange with DeDolph, as did DeDolph.
During his plea deal, DeDolph denied that he sought Morris’s permission and claimed Morris had no involvement in the incident with Melgar.
“Anybody with half a brain” could see that Matthews was making a last-ditch attempt to save his own skin, Morris’s attorney, Jeffrey Addicott — a retired Army lieutenant colonel and judge advocate — told Fox News Digital.
“Not all liars are murderers,” Addicott said, “but all murderers are liars.”
Still, during the plea deal process for a third of Melgar’s murderers, Marine Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell repeated the claim that Morris gave the men permission to tune Melgar up, adding that the men had plans to record Melgar being sexually assaulted during the attack.
“Two years after Melgar’s death, the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) finally asked Morris to come in for questioning,” according to Fox News Digital. “Agents fingerprinted him, took a DNA swab from his cheek and took his photo.”
Morris was assured that the photo was not a mug shot, but “just part of the process.”
Two more years would pass before Morris would discover when applying for a concealed carry renewal that he had an arrest on his record claiming he had been charged with, among other things, aggravated sexual contact, negligent homicide, and murder.
“I had all of these on my record and had no idea,” Morris said. “I’d been walking around with them for at least two years at that point.”
Fox News Digital reports:
Morris is a victim of an obscure military process known as “titling,” in which CID [Army Criminal Investigation Division] creates a permanent record showing a soldier was the subject of an investigation regardless of whether they are ever charged with a crime. In many cases, CID forwards that information to the FBI’s criminal database where the titles show up as an arrest.
Soldiers and veterans usually don’t know they’ve been titled until they apply for a job, firearm license or anything else that requires a background check. Once you’ve been titled, it’s nearly impossible to get your record corrected.
Addicott is representing Morris pro bono through the Warrior Defense Project, “an educational and working institution, which operates hand-in-hand with government, business and academia on a variety of legal matters associated with providing legal services to deserving service members,” according to its website.
“It’s really a story of the military overreacting, looking for scalps,” he said.
“I think the rot is at the top,” he explained. “The CID is out to justify their existence, and therefore in many cases, they’re not concerned with providing justice. They’re concerned with titling people.”
“This was a high-profile news story,” Addicott noted. “The CID goes to a five-alarm fire.”
Morris’s wife, Kim, feels the government betrayed her husband.
“The worst part is, we signed up for a unit that was gonna protect him and they didn’t,” she said. “Where is the brotherhood? Where is the accountability?”
Morris recalled his chain of command telling him, “You were a subject of an investigation. Titling is just an administrative action.”
“They just keep telling you these things don’t get held against you,” Morris said. “They do. They most certainly do.”
“Every facet of [the Uniform Code of Military Justice] will hide behind ‘it’s an administrative action,’ but I can administratively freeze your checking accounts and it’s just an administrative action,” he explained. “But you can’t buy food. I can effectively starve you to death. To say that it’s just an administrative action doesn’t do it any justice at all.”
After Morris filed a complaint with the Defense Department’s inspector general last November, his record was scrubbed of the murder and negligent homicide charges without explanation, but other charges remain, including attempted aggravated sexual contact, soliciting another to commit aggravated assault and obstruction of justice, and CID refuses to untitle him.
“Mr. Morris will remain titled,” a CID agent wrote in an August 15 email reviewed by Fox News Digital. “Titling is an administrative function and NOT indicative of a criminal determination.”
However, according to Morris, the “administration function” on his record prevented him from progressing in the Army.
In May of this year, “Morris said he was pressured to leave the Army after 18 years and 10 months,” the outlet reports. “He was just over a year away from obtaining the coveted military pension.”
“He didn’t want to get out of the military,” Addicott said. By retiring before hitting his 20-year mark, Morris “lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
And finding an employer willing to consider him for a job when it appears on a background check that he’s been arrested for killing someone or attempted sex crimes is proving to be a challenge. After submitting 80 applications over the course of a year, the former Green Beret says he only landed two interviews.
“You’ll never know how many jobs you didn’t get because of a background check,” Morris said. “However, it does leave you with this stigma. I know that this is out there.”
Addicott not only aims to get his client untitled and clear his name, he is fighting to get Morris reinstated in the military, regain his lost Master Sergeant promotion, and make him eligible for his retirement benefits.
Kim Morris credits God with getting her family through this nightmare.
“I don’t even know that we’ll know how to feel normal without this black cloud over us and our family,” she said. “There is no way, absolutely no way, we could have made it without our faith in God and our family that has been around us and that has prayed for us.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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