Col. David Garcia thought his problems were over after a military board concluded that allegations he had created a hostile work environment were unfounded and recommended he retain his job in the U.S. Army.
Instead, his FBI background check reads that he was arrested for “abusive sexual contact” and Garcia said he is at risk of being forced out of the Army if the error isn’t fixed by Aug. 1.
“I was never handcuffed. I wasn’t tossed in the back of a squad car, [or] read my Miranda rights,” Garcia told Fox News Digital. “So why did I show up as having been arrested?”
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Garcia is among the unknown number of soldiers and veterans stuck in a bureaucratic twilight zone, leaving them with a false arrest record, which can result in missed employment opportunities, the denial of firearms permits, and more.
“There’s an ‘easy button’ in this case that would… help every service member affected,” lawyer and retired Green Beret Doug O’Connell said.
He wants the Trump administration to act.
“The president and/or the Secretary of Defense have the absolute authority to order all branches of the military not to create criminal histories that are false, and to correct every single criminal history that shows someone was arrested or received into custody when they weren’t,” O’Connell said. “They don’t need a judge to tell them to do it. They don’t need a court proceeding. They could solve this problem simply by picking up the phone.”
An obscure military process known as “titling” is at the root of the issue. The Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) 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 using a form that includes an arrest date, even if the soldier was never actually arrested.
According to Garcia, it’s like if a police officer pulled you over, looked up your driver’s license and insurance information on their computer, let you off with a warning, and then reported that you had been arrested.
In his case, Garcia said an “underperforming” employee accused him of creating a hostile work environment in 2023, which prompted investigators to speak with multiple members of Garcia’s team and question Garcia himself. Garcia said he asked agents whether he was under arrest, and they said, “no.”
Ultimately, a military board found that Garcia had not committed “misconduct, moral or professional dereliction” and recommended that he remain in service to the Army, according to records he shared with Fox News Digital.
However, his FBI background check makes it seem like Garcia was arrested on May 25, 2023, and charged with abusive sexual contact.
Nearly two years later, he is still fighting to have the record corrected, paying a lawyer “thousands of dollars just to fix what [CID has] done.”
The Army has previously acknowledged titling’s impact on service members. In late 2022, after years of outcry from soldiers titled after a sweeping investigation into a military recruiting program known as G-RAP, CID began correcting hundreds of records. But the corrections were limited to that group of service members and, more recently, CID has continued to defend the practice as simply an “administrative action.”
Titling is a “systemic problem,” Army veteran and attorney Will Thomas said, one that has cost people their careers, professional licenses, bank loans, weapons permits and more.
“This is affecting thousands of people, thousands of service members, thousands of veterans, many of whom don’t even know that they have an issue,” Thomas told Fox News Digital.
O’Connell and Thomas initially sued the Army, CID, DoD, FBI and their leaders in 2023 on behalf of Sgt. Denise Rosales and all other service members “shackled” with a false arrest record. U.S. District Judge David Ezra has since dismissed the FBI from the suit on the grounds that the agency is simply a “repository” from the information. He also dismissed CID and individual leaders under sovereign immunity.
But the suit against the Army and Defense Department is still pending, with Ezra writing last May that the defendants “provided no explanation as to why they would not change [Rosales’] record.”
“One could only speculate as to why the Army would defend a record that is not accurate of the events that took place,” Ezra wrote in part.
A representative of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which is defending the government against the lawsuit, declined to comment.
Those who spoke with Fox News Digital hope to avoid dragging out a legal war that has already been ongoing for years, and are seeking immediate relief from the Trump administration, which has already taken unilateral action like reinstating service members booted from the military for declining the COVID-19 vaccine. Trump has also shaken up Pentagon leadership by firing several top military officers.
O’Connell, who has represented titled soldiers and veterans for years, says he and his clients have jumped through “every administrative hoop,” starting with JAG (Judge Advocate General) officers and moving up to Army general counsel.
“They seem hell-bent on punishing soldiers who have not done anything wrong,” he said. “I think I understand why Secretary Hegseth is so frustrated with the senior JAG officers, because they’ve allowed this bureaucracy to perpetuate that only serves to harm soldiers.”
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last month that positions in the JAG Corps have typically been filled by a “small group of insulated officers who perpetuate the status quo.”
“Well, guess what, status quo hasn’t worked very well at the Pentagon,” Hegseth told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s time for fresh blood.”
“With the last administration, we got nowhere with them,” Thomas said of efforts to clear soldiers’ names. “We’re optimistic and hopeful that the new administration can step in and really just fix this problem.”
Garcia, meanwhile, is up against a ticking clock. After more than 30 years serving in the Army, he says if his record isn’t corrected by Aug. 1, he’s scheduled to be forced off of active duty.
O’Connell said the military’s refusal to budge “makes no sense, especially in an era where there’s lots of threats out in the world and recruiting needs to be boosted.”
“Why would parents send their children to the military if they know our military is creating false criminal histories for no apparent good reason?” he asked.
The White House and Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.
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