{"id":19331,"date":"2023-10-20T05:06:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T10:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=19331"},"modified":"2023-10-20T05:06:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T10:06:29","slug":"travis-king-army-private-who-fled-to-north-korea-charged-with-desertion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=19331","title":{"rendered":"Travis King, Army private who fled to North Korea, charged with desertion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Travis King<\/u><\/a>, the US Army private who fled to North Korea in July, has been charged by the Army with desertion, among other crimes, according to a charging document seen by CNN Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King, who was released from North Korean custody and returned to the United States last month, was charged with a series of other alleged offenses, including possession of child pornography, assaulting fellow soldiers, and disobeying a superior officer, according to the document. He was charged with eight counts total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King, 23, was detained Wednesday at Ft. Bliss, Texas, according to a source familiar, who told CNN that he is being held in pre-trial detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement shared with CNN, King\u2019s mother, Claudine Gates, said she loves her son \u201cunconditionally\u201d and is \u201cextremely concerned about his mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs his mother, I ask that my son be afforded the presumption of innocence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA mother knows her son, and I believe something happened to mine while he was deployed. The Army promised to investigate what happened at Camp Humphries, and I await the results,\u201d Gates added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN has reached out to the Army for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King returned to US soil in late September after US officials said he \u201cwillfully and without authorization\u201d crossed into North Korea in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly before fleeing, King had been released from detention in South Korea related to an October 2022 incident in which he allegedly pushed and punched a victim in the face at a club in Seoul, according to court documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King was supposed to board a flight to Texas where he was to face disciplinary procedures, but when he was released at a security checkpoint at the airport in Seoul, King left and the next day joined a tour of Joint Security Area in the demilitarized zone, from which he fled across the demarcation line into North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cnn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travis King, the US Army private who fled to North Korea in July, has been charged by the Army with desertion, among other crimes, according to a charging document seen by CNN Thursday. King, who was released from North Korean custody and returned to the United States last month, was charged with a series of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[23528,23527,23526,1363,22822],"class_list":["post-19331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-army-private","tag-charged-with-desertion","tag-fleeing-to","tag-korea","tag-travis-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19333,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19331\/revisions\/19333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}