The court-martial for an Army major charged with raping or sexually assaulting more than a dozen women in the Washington, D.C., region between 2019 and 2023 begins this week at Fort Meade, Md. (U.S. Army)

The court-martial for an Army major charged with raping or sexually assaulting more than a dozen women in the Washington, D.C., region between 2019 and 2023 is set to begin this week at Fort Meade, Md.

Maj. Jonathan Batt faces charges for more than 63 accusations, including 10 specifications of rape, and 15 of sexual assault against 17 women, according to the Army’s Office of Special Trial, which prosecutes sexual cases in the service. He also faces aggravated assault, battery, abusive sexual contact and obstruction of justice charges in the case.

Batt has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and specifications brought against him, his civilian attorney Nathan Freeburg said. Jury selection was set to begin Monday.

The Army initially charged Batt in October, when the service charged him with 76 violations of the military law — known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was originally charged with violating 20 women, but several of the charges were dropped as the case proceeded in court. At least some of the charges were dropped because some of the victims declined to participate in the case, said Michelle McCaskill, the spokeswoman for the Office of Special Trial.

Newly released charging sheets show the Army accused Batt of carrying out a range of sexual and aggravated assaults on women mostly in Arlington, Va., and Washington. Some of the women accused Batt of choking them with his hands, a pillowcase, rope and his own shirt until they were unconscious before he raped them.

In other instances, he is accused of using sex toys and his fingers to violate victims against their will and “with an intent to gratify his own sexual desire,” according to the charging documents. Some of the accusers said Batt bit and slapped them without consent.

The obstruction of justice charge comes from an interaction in which he told an individual not to speak with “someone posing as a police officer” who might contact that person about “sexual assault allegations that some women are making against me,” according to the charging documents.

Batt is a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He commissioned as an infantry officer and he has served with the 82nd Airborne Division, the 5th Ranger Training Brigade, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 3rd Infantry Regiment, according to service records. He has served at least four combat tours in Afghanistan, and he most recently was assigned to the Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in northern Virginia’s Crystal City.

He has elected to be tried by military jury, known as a panel, Freeburg said. That panel must be made up entirely of officers who are senior to Batt, by law. Panel selection is expected to run at least through Tuesday, and the trial is scheduled through June 27, McCaskill said.

The rape charges carry a potential life sentence, according to the UCMJ.

Freeburg declined to comment directly on his client’s case ahead of the trial.

Prosecutors are expected to paint Batt as a womanizer who used dating apps to meet most of the women who have accused him of assault, according to a source close to the case with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Charging documents show some of the accusers told investigators that Batt attacked them multiple times.

The case first came to light when an accuser reported to police in Alexandria, Va., that she was assaulted by Batt after meeting him via a dating app, according to the source close to the case. That accuser declined to press charges, but Alexandria police launched an initial probe and eventually turned the case over to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, whose agents uncovered additional accusers and built the case against Batt, the source said.

In addition to the rape and sexual assault charges, Batt faces 13 specifications of aggravated assault by strangulation, one specification of aggravated assault by suffocation, 20 specifications of assault consummated by a battery, and one specification of obstructing justice, McCaskill said.

The victims are almost all civilians with no relation to the military, according to Josh Connolly, the senior vice president for Protect Our Defenders, a human rights group focused on ending military sexual assault.

While accusers in the military or with military family members receive victim’s advocate services from the military, civilian accusers do not have rights to those services under current law.

“The case against Maj. Batt is a glaring example of the military’s repeated failure to protect both service members and civilians from predators within its ranks,” Connolly said in a statement Monday. “With at least 20 alleged victims and abuse spanning years, this case underscores just how broken and unaccountable the system remains — especially when civilians, who won’t receive legal representation from the military, are among the harmed.”

Many of Batt’s accusers are expected to testify at trial, said Ryan Guilds, a lawyer who is representing six of the accusers.

“Trial is a long time in coming,” he said. “My clients are eager to speak the truth and see justice done but know it may never come.”