USA- JROTC: Teen Sexual Abuse - Mary F. Calvert Photography

USA- 'I Felt Trapped': Sexual Abuse of Teens in the Military's J.R.O.T.C. Program

Former students say military veterans who led J.R.O.T.C. classes in U.S. high schools fashioned themselves as mentors, then used their power to manipulate and abuse. For more than a century, the J.R.O.T.C. program has sought to instill U.S. military values in American teenagers, with classes in thousands of public high schools that provide training in marksmanship, life skills, hierarchical discipline and military history.

But a New York Times investigation — which included an examination of thousands of court documents, investigative files and other records obtained through more than 150 public disclosure requests — has found that the program has repeatedly become a place where retired military officers prey on their teenage students.

In the past five years, The Times found, at least 33 J.R.O.T.C. instructors have been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students, far higher than the rate of civilian high school teachers in jurisdictions examined by The Times. Many others have been accused of misconduct but never charged.

Victoria Bauer visits Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA. where she was coerced into sex with her decades older JROTC instructor when she was in high school.

With the rifle skills she honed in the Mississippi backwoods, she had a path to escape the trap of drugs and dead-end jobs she saw most everywhere around her. Her future was in the Marines, she decided, and she had an idea about how to get there.

Across the way from her freshman algebra class, Ms. Bauer approached Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a leadership program sponsored by the U.S. military at high schools across the country. He welcomed her into the fold, she said, and seemed interested in how her family, which traced roots back to the Four Winds Cherokee of Louisiana, had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Soon, her 45-year-old J.R.O.T.C. instructor was messaging her on Snapchat late into the night, telling her that it would “drive the guys crazy” if she wore a “small bikini” during the trip to their next out-of-state shooting competition. Then one night in 2015 as he drove her home from rifle practice, she told investigators, Mr. Hardin pushed his hand into her pants and penetrated her with his fingers — the start of what she said was months of sexual assaults. Ms. Bauer, who was 15 at the time, feared that resisting him would jeopardize her shot at advancement through the J.R.O.T.C. ranks or a military career.

“I gave all the body-language signals that I didn’t want it,” Ms. Bauer said in an interview. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Victoria Bauer, at home in Slidell, LA., holds a picture of herself in her JROTC uniform when she was in high school. She was a student at Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA. when she was coerced into sex with her decades older JROTC instructor.

Victoria Bauer, with her partner Brittany D’Antoni and Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Williams, the J.R.O.T.C. instructor who reported her abuser visit Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA.

Mr. Williams, recalled in an interview that Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps had made a lewd comment to him about a student in a bikini. Then, when some students came to him with a report that they had seen several concerning text messages that Mr. Hardin had sent to a female student, Mr. Williams said, he brought the issue to school administrators. But he said he faced intense blowback. One of the longtime leaders in the school’s J.R.O.T.C. program, he recalled, accused him of failing to follow the chain of command by going to administrators instead of trying to resolve the complaints with Mr. Hardin directly. School officials did not respond to requests to discuss the case. But court records show that a police investigation ensued. Ms. Bauer initially defended him, saying in a recent interview that she did not disclose her encounters with Mr. Hardin at the time because she feared she would be ostracized.

Mr. Hardin was not charged at the time, and wound up applying for a new role at a J.R.O.T.C. program two hours away from Picayune.

He got the job.

JROTC groups march in the Orlando Veteran’s Day parade .

Jacey Antokoletz works at home while her daughter Olivia 3, plays and eats in Poughkeepsie, NY. When she was in high school, she was coerced into sex with her JROTC instructor.

Jacey Antokoletz works at home in Poughkeepsie, NY. When she was in high school, she was coerced into sex with her JROTC instructor.

When she came forward with allegations against her Air Force J.R.O.T.C. instructor in Charlotte, N.C., Dominique Mixon wondered whether anyone would believe her.

The instructor, Brad Gibson, had a catalog of medals and ribbons earned over 24 years of service. After retiring from active duty, he was hired to lead the military program at his alma mater, Independence High School — “Home of the Patriots.”

Ms. Mixon had joined J.R.O.T.C. as a freshman, hoping to go all four years and pursue a possible career in the Air Force. Mr. Gibson, then 44, had at first been a friendly mentor, but at times became flirtatious, Ms. Mixon told investigators in 2010.

Then, as she was working on an assignment alone at the back of the J.R.O.T.C. complex one day, she said, he came up next to her and began rubbing her thigh. He next moved his hand up her shirt, kissed her neck and licked her ears, Ms. Mixon reported. He told her he had been having “nasty” thoughts about her, she said.

She reported the incident within days to a teacher, who referred her to a campus police officer. But her report went nowhere.

A school administrator told police investigators that Mr. Gibson had previously been counseled for “borderline inappropriate behavior with his female students,” records say, but he was allowed to continue leading the J.R.O.T.C. program.

In J.R.O.T.C. classrooms, instructors are not just teachers, they are superior officers. Abuse victims say the power dynamics in the program make it more difficult to resist sexual assaults.

It was Ms. Mixon who was pushed out of the program. She recalled being forced to sit alone in an office during fourth period, rather than attend her J.R.O.T.C. class.

“I felt trapped,” Ms. Mixon said. “I felt alone in a corner. I felt like it was just me, myself and I.”

That spring, she said, Mr. Gibson chaperoned her prom.

Dominique Mixon cries at home in Charlotte, NC. She reported the sexual abuse within days to a teacher, who referred her to a campus police officer. But her report went nowhere.

A school administrator told police investigators that Mr. Gibson had previously been counseled for “borderline inappropriate behavior with his female students,” records say, but he was allowed to continue leading the J.R.O.T.C. program.

In J.R.O.T.C. classrooms, instructors are not just teachers, they are superior officers. Abuse victims say the power dynamics in the program make it more difficult to resist sexual assaults.

It was Ms. Mixon who was pushed out of the program. She recalled being forced to sit alone in an office during fourth period, rather than attend her J.R.O.T.C. class.

“I felt trapped,” Ms. Mixon said. “I felt alone in a corner. I felt like it was just me, myself and I.”

That spring, she said, Mr. Gibson chaperoned her prom.

JROTC groups march in the Orlando Veteran’s Day parade.

Eight years later, long after she had graduated, Ms. Mixon got a call from a Charlotte police officer: A 16-year-old student had filed a new report about Mr. Gibson.

It was a familiar story: Mr. Gibson, the girl reported to the police, had at first offered friendly hugs and made comments about her looks; then, when they were alone in a room one day during her sophomore year, he put his hand up her shirt. Another time, she told the police, he told her he had been thinking about her when he masturbated. The groping, she said, persisted for months.

The 2018 allegations led the authorities to reopen Ms. Mixon’s case. Two years ago, Mr. Gibson pleaded guilty to indecent liberties with both girls. He was sentenced to five years of probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Dominique Mixon meets with a young woman in a park in Charlotte, NC who was sexually abused by the same JROTC instructor in the same high school program where ten years earlier she was also abused. The young woman did not not want her namer used or her identity shown)

Eight years later, long after she had graduated, Ms. Mixon got a call from a Charlotte police officer: A 16-year-old student had filed a new report about Mr. Gibson.

It was a familiar story: Mr. Gibson, the girl reported to the police, had at first offered friendly hugs and made comments about her looks; then, when they were alone in a room one day during her sophomore year, he put his hand up her shirt. Another time, she told the police, he told her he had been thinking about her when he masturbated. The groping, she said, persisted for months.

The 2018 allegations led the authorities to reopen Ms. Mixon’s case. Two years ago, Mr. Gibson pleaded guilty to indecent liberties with both girls. He was sentenced to five years of probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Dominique Mixon meets with a young woman in a park in Charlotte, NC who was sexually abused by the same JROTC instructor in the same high school program where ten years earlier she was also abused. The young woman did not not want her namer used or her identity shown)

“I do not want this to happen to another child,” said a woman from Florida, who joined the J.R.O.T.C. program at her school to try to get into the Coast Guard. This young woman who did not want to be named or identified was sexually assaulted by her JROTC instructor. When she is feeling the traumatic effects of the sexual trauma, she often sits on the floor of her closet at home in Orlando, FL. where she sat for a portrait.

“I do not want this to happen to another child,” said a woman from Florida, who joined the J.R.O.T.C. program at her school to try to get into the Coast Guard. This young woman who did not want to be named or identified was sexually assaulted by her JROTC instructor. When she is feeling the traumatic effects of the sexual trauma, she often sits on the floor of her closet at home in Orlando, FL. While sitting for a portrait, her dog came over to cuddle her.

Jacey Antokoletz, 23, said the abuse she endured as a high school junior in Brewster, N.Y., left her dreading sleep because of recurring nightmares about her J.R.O.T.C. instructor, Christopher Vlangas.

For a time, Ms. Antokoletz had viewed the relationship as consensual, even writing a letter in support of him after he was arrested on charges of abusing a different student. Ms. Antokoletz said it was only then, after meeting with a prosecutor who explained how adults can target and manipulate children, that she started to see that Mr. Vlangas had abused her, too.

Ms. Antokoletz, who now has a child with her fiancé, fears that her young daughter might misinterpret her skittishness around men, including those closest to her.

“If I flinch at something or I just don’t want to be touched and she sees that, she sees like, ‘Oh, what is Daddy doing to Mommy?’” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Mr. Vlangas pleaded guilty to a statutory rape charge involving the other student and was sentenced to six months in jail. Ms. Antokoletz and the other student recently settled a lawsuit against Mr. Vlangas and the school district.

“I work two jobs and go to school full time, because if I didn’t have those things, it would give me more time to think about it a lot and I don’t want to think about it,” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Jacey Antokoletz, 23, said the abuse she endured as a high school junior in Brewster, N.Y., left her dreading sleep because of recurring nightmares about her J.R.O.T.C. instructor, Christopher Vlangas.

For a time, Ms. Antokoletz had viewed the relationship as consensual, even writing a letter in support of him after he was arrested on charges of abusing a different student. Ms. Antokoletz said it was only then, after meeting with a prosecutor who explained how adults can target and manipulate children, that she started to see that Mr. Vlangas had abused her, too.

Ms. Antokoletz, who now has a child with her fiancé, fears that her young daughter might misinterpret her skittishness around men, including those closest to her.

“If I flinch at something or I just don’t want to be touched and she sees that, she sees like, ‘Oh, what is Daddy doing to Mommy?’” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Mr. Vlangas pleaded guilty to a statutory rape charge involving the other student and was sentenced to six months in jail. Ms. Antokoletz and the other student recently settled a lawsuit against Mr. Vlangas and the school district.

“I work two jobs and go to school full time, because if I didn’t have those things, it would give me more time to think about it a lot and I don’t want to think about it,” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Jacey Antokoletz has family time at home with husband Peter and daughter Olivia 3, in Poughkeepsie, NY. When she was in high school, she was coerced into sex with her JROTC instructor.

Jacey Antokoletz, 23, said the abuse she endured as a high school junior in Brewster, N.Y., left her dreading sleep because of recurring nightmares about her J.R.O.T.C. instructor, Christopher Vlangas.

For a time, Ms. Antokoletz had viewed the relationship as consensual, even writing a letter in support of him after he was arrested on charges of abusing a different student. Ms. Antokoletz said it was only then, after meeting with a prosecutor who explained how adults can target and manipulate children, that she started to see that Mr. Vlangas had abused her, too.

Ms. Antokoletz, who now has a child with her fiancé, fears that her young daughter might misinterpret her skittishness around men, including those closest to her.

“If I flinch at something or I just don’t want to be touched and she sees that, she sees like, ‘Oh, what is Daddy doing to Mommy?’” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Mr. Vlangas pleaded guilty to a statutory rape charge involving the other student and was sentenced to six months in jail. Ms. Antokoletz and the other student recently settled a lawsuit against Mr. Vlangas and the school district.

“I work two jobs and go to school full time, because if I didn’t have those things, it would give me more time to think about it a lot and I don’t want to think about it,” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Jacey Antokoletz, 23, said the abuse she endured as a high school junior in Brewster, N.Y., left her dreading sleep because of recurring nightmares about her J.R.O.T.C. instructor, Christopher Vlangas.

For a time, Ms. Antokoletz had viewed the relationship as consensual, even writing a letter in support of him after he was arrested on charges of abusing a different student. Ms. Antokoletz said it was only then, after meeting with a prosecutor who explained how adults can target and manipulate children, that she started to see that Mr. Vlangas had abused her, too.

Ms. Antokoletz, who now has a child with her fiancé, fears that her young daughter might misinterpret her skittishness around men, including those closest to her.

“If I flinch at something or I just don’t want to be touched and she sees that, she sees like, ‘Oh, what is Daddy doing to Mommy?’” Ms. Antokoletz said.

Mr. Vlangas pleaded guilty to a statutory rape charge involving the other student and was sentenced to six months in jail. Ms. Antokoletz and the other student recently settled a lawsuit against Mr. Vlangas and the school district.

“I work two jobs and go to school full time, because if I didn’t have those things, it would give me more time to think about it a lot and I don’t want to think about it,” Ms. Antokoletz said.

JROTC groups march in the Orlando Veteran’s Day parade.

Victoria Bauer at home in Slidell, LA.

With the rifle skills she honed in the Mississippi backwoods, she had a path to escape the trap of drugs and dead-end jobs she saw most everywhere around her. Her future was in the Marines, she decided, and she had an idea about how to get there.

Across the way from her freshman algebra class, Ms. Bauer approached Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a leadership program sponsored by the U.S. military at high schools across the country. He welcomed her into the fold, she said, and seemed interested in how her family, which traced roots back to the Four Winds Cherokee of Louisiana, had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Soon, her 45-year-old J.R.O.T.C. instructor was messaging her on Snapchat late into the night, telling her that it would “drive the guys crazy” if she wore a “small bikini” during the trip to their next out-of-state shooting competition. Then one night in 2015 as he drove her home from rifle practice, she told investigators, Mr. Hardin pushed his hand into her pants and penetrated her with his fingers — the start of what she said was months of sexual assaults. Ms. Bauer, who was 15 at the time, feared that resisting him would jeopardize her shot at advancement through the J.R.O.T.C. ranks or a military career.

“I gave all the body-language signals that I didn’t want it,” Ms. Bauer said in an interview. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Victoria Bauer at home in Slidell, LA., displays tattoos she received after being sexually assaulted while in JROTC. “As for the Medusa tattoo,’ says Victoria, “Medusa was raped in Athena’s temple and most people think Athena cursed Medusa but she actually turned her into a “monster” to where no man could hurt her again.”

“They gain your trust. They make you feel like family,” said Ms. Bauer, who joined her school’s J.R.O.T.C. program in the hopes of one day becoming a Marine.

With the rifle skills she honed in the Mississippi backwoods, she had a path to escape the trap of drugs and dead-end jobs she saw most everywhere around her. Her future was in the Marines, she decided, and she had an idea about how to get there.

Across the way from her freshman algebra class, Ms. Bauer approached Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a leadership program sponsored by the U.S. military at high schools across the country. He welcomed her into the fold, she said, and seemed interested in how her family, which traced roots back to the Four Winds Cherokee of Louisiana, had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Soon, her 45-year-old J.R.O.T.C. instructor was messaging her on Snapchat late into the night, telling her that it would “drive the guys crazy” if she wore a “small bikini” during the trip to their next out-of-state shooting competition. Then one night in 2015 as he drove her home from rifle practice, she told investigators, Mr. Hardin pushed his hand into her pants and penetrated her with his fingers — the start of what she said was months of sexual assaults. Ms. Bauer, who was 15 at the time, feared that resisting him would jeopardize her shot at advancement through the J.R.O.T.C. ranks or a military career.

“I gave all the body-language signals that I didn’t want it,” Ms. Bauer said in an interview. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Victoria Bauer at home in Slidell, LA., displays tattoos she received after being sexually assaulted while in JROTC. “As for the Medusa tattoo,’ says Victoria, “Medusa was raped in Athena’s temple and most people think Athena cursed Medusa but she actually turned her into a “monster” to where no man could hurt her again.”

Victoria Bauer, at home in Slidell, LA., shows suggestive text messages she received from Steve Hardin, her JROTC instructor when she was in high school.

Victoria cuddles with her partner at home in Slidell, LA. With the rifle skills she honed in the Mississippi backwoods, she had a path to escape the trap of drugs and dead-end jobs she saw most everywhere around her. Her future was in the Marines, she decided, and she had an idea about how to get there.

Across the way from her freshman algebra class, Ms. Bauer approached Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a leadership program sponsored by the U.S. military at high schools across the country. He welcomed her into the fold, she said, and seemed interested in how her family, which traced roots back to the Four Winds Cherokee of Louisiana, had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Soon, her 45-year-old J.R.O.T.C. instructor was messaging her on Snapchat late into the night, telling her that it would “drive the guys crazy” if she wore a “small bikini” during the trip to their next out-of-state shooting competition. Then one night in 2015 as he drove her home from rifle practice, she told investigators, Mr. Hardin pushed his hand into her pants and penetrated her with his fingers — the start of what she said was months of sexual assaults. Ms. Bauer, who was 15 at the time, feared that resisting him would jeopardize her shot at advancement through the J.R.O.T.C. ranks or a military career.

“I gave all the body-language signals that I didn’t want it,” Ms. Bauer said in an interview. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Victoria Bauer, with her partner Brittany D’Antoni visits Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA. where she was coerced into sex with her decades older JROTC instructor when she was in high school.

With the rifle skills she honed in the Mississippi backwoods, she had a path to escape the trap of drugs and dead-end jobs she saw most everywhere around her. Her future was in the Marines, she decided, and she had an idea about how to get there.

Across the way from her freshman algebra class, Ms. Bauer approached Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a leadership program sponsored by the U.S. military at high schools across the country. He welcomed her into the fold, she said, and seemed interested in how her family, which traced roots back to the Four Winds Cherokee of Louisiana, had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Soon, her 45-year-old J.R.O.T.C. instructor was messaging her on Snapchat late into the night, telling her that it would “drive the guys crazy” if she wore a “small bikini” during the trip to their next out-of-state shooting competition. Then one night in 2015 as he drove her home from rifle practice, she told investigators, Mr. Hardin pushed his hand into her pants and penetrated her with his fingers — the start of what she said was months of sexual assaults. Ms. Bauer, who was 15 at the time, feared that resisting him would jeopardize her shot at advancement through the J.R.O.T.C. ranks or a military career.

“I gave all the body-language signals that I didn’t want it,” Ms. Bauer said in an interview. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

Victoria Bauer, with her partner Brittany D’Antoni visits Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA. where she was coerced into sex with her decades older JROTC instructor when she was in high school.

Victoria Bauer, with her partner Brittany D’Antoni and Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Williams, the J.R.O.T.C. instructor who reported her abuser visit Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA.

Mr. Williams, recalled in an interview that Steve Hardin, the retired Navy intelligence officer who guided the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps had made a lewd comment to him about a student in a bikini. Then, when some students came to him with a report that they had seen several concerning text messages that Mr. Hardin had sent to a female student, Mr. Williams said, he brought the issue to school administrators. But he said he faced intense blowback. One of the longtime leaders in the school’s J.R.O.T.C. program, he recalled, accused him of failing to follow the chain of command by going to administrators instead of trying to resolve the complaints with Mr. Hardin directly. School officials did not respond to requests to discuss the case. But court records show that a police investigation ensued. Ms. Bauer initially defended him, saying in a recent interview that she did not disclose her encounters with Mr. Hardin at the time because she feared she would be ostracized.

Mr. Hardin was not charged at the time, and wound up applying for a new role at a J.R.O.T.C. program two hours away from Picayune.

He got the job.

Victoria Bauer walks with Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Williams, the J.R.O.T.C. instructor who reported her abuser visit Picayune Memorial High School in Picayune, LA.

Jordan Leloup works at a gentlemen’s club in Nashville, TN. She came from a troubled childhood of poverty and drugs in Tennessee and no longer had a relationship with her parents. She said she yearned for something akin to “family.”

When the J.R.O.T.C. instructor, Michael Bass, approached her one day during the 2013-14 school year about joining the program at Hendersonville High School, she said, he had an appealing sales pitch. “We are like family,” he told her.

After she joined, Mr. Bass, who was 44, invited her for dinners at his home, where she would socialize with his wife and children. Then one night, she said, she arrived to find herself alone with Mr. Bass, who had set two places at the table, with wine. He later took her to an upstairs room, where the first sexual assault occurred. She was 17.

After that, she said, Mr. Bass would tell her nearly every day where to meet him privately — sometimes in a storage room at school or in an office, where he would lock a metal door. When she began to express reluctance, she said, he pressured her.

“Any time he told me to be ready or meet him somewhere, I had to be there,” she said. “If I didn’t, there would be consequences.”

One night when she threatened to tell the police about the relationship, she said, Mr. Bass insinuated that his time in the military had given him the skills that would allow him to kill her without anyone knowing.

Ms. Leloup eventually did go to the police, who charged Mr. Bass, citing a recorded conversation in which he acknowledged a sexual relationship. He pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated statutory rape in 2019 and was sentenced to four years in prison.

“I came from nothing. I came from dirt poor,” Ms. Leloup said. “I looked at it like, ‘I have to do what this man tells me to do, because he is offering the world.’”

Jordan Leloup holds a picture of herself in uniform in JROTC at home in Murfreesboro, TN.

Jordan Leloup looks after her daughter London at home in Murfreesboro, TN. Because of her experience being sexually assaulted in JROTC, Jordan says she lives in fear that her daughter will be raped.

Jordan Leloup works at a gentlemen’s club in Nashville, TN.

Because of her trauma of being sexually assaulted in JROTC, Jordan Leloup says she lives in fear that her daughter will be raped so each night London sleeps next to her in bed at home in Murfreesboro, TN.