Dan Wilson, who rose through the ranks in the Marines from Private to Colonel in his final 10 years there, has published Undaunted Gladiator, a book about his experience being wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime he never committed. He fought the conviction while in prison and won, was exonerated and released after three years of incarceration. It is a tragic example of how woke policies, corrupt lawyers and generals are destroying our military from within. Wilson was a perfect target as a high achieving and decorated military officer, who was also a white Christian male born into an impressive and revered family of missionaries.
Wilson described how it all started, “Just a week after being informed that he was being considered for Brigadier General, a single false allegation was made by a substance abuser, seeking attention.”
Wilson and his wife were hosting a dinner party one evening at their home on base in 2016. In attendance was a visiting academic and the family of a Marine friend. Wilson was in the living room the entire evening with the guests and never alone with the young girls in the family. He said the girls’ mother had four cocktails, then when one of the girls fell down and hurt herself, the mother decided to accuse him of molesting her — right there at the gathering at the house.
The investigations began, and it made him so miserable he began drinking a lot, sometimes even before breakfast. Thoughts of suicide entered his mind.
Even though DNA testing exonerated him, shutting down the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s (NCIS) investigation, two more witch hunts were launched to find any dirt at all to charge him with. A second woman accused him of raping her after having a falling out with his wife, providing no evidence so it was ultimately thrown out as baseless.
But it made things worse because he was then ordered into custody. Wilson was sent to pre-trial confinement for eight months before trial, and slapped with an unconstitutional gag order that applied to his entire defense team by a conflicted judge who admitted he was friends with the lead prosecutor. A younger corporal he’d served with insisted on paying for his defense.
Wilson didn’t receive a jury of his peers, but of hand-picked generals; with no no facts, evidence or witnesses allowed. Only two-thirds were required to convict. The “jury” found him not guilty on 15 of 16 charges.
I wrote an article about his unjust imprisonment, and New York attorneys for the woman who had accused him of molesting her daughter overnighted me as well as my then-employer a menacing letter demanding I take the article down within 24 hours or they threatened legal action against me. Since I’d spoken extensively with Wilson’s family and knew he was innocent, I held firm.
Wilson’s appeal was conducted while he was in prison. Wilson’s stepdaughter paid for an appellate attorney to represent him to the appellate court, because he was too deep in debt from legal expenses to hire one.
The appeals court panel unanimously exonerated him in an opinion issued in 2019, setting aside the conviction with prejudice. They found that testimony by the girl (“BP”) was inconsistent. “The only clear and consistent description BP has given with any level of detail is one that is not consistent with guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the judge said.
The opinion went over the many factors that influenced what BP said, such as pressure — indirect or otherwise — from her mom and the forensic interviewer. “[T]he government presented no physical evidence and no corroborating eyewitnesses who saw or heard signs of abuse. Until BP fell onto the floor and ran crying to Mrs. P on ‘disclosure night,’ no member of the P family saw or heard any reason for concern with BP’s play with the appellant,” they concluded.
Wilson grew up in various African countries where his parents were missionaries. His father was a schoolteacher and pastor, whose amazing sermons I was lucky enough to hear as a child. His mother was a doctor who provided free services to the locals. He joined the Marines at 20 and excelled at everything, especially fitness. He commanded four platoons, three companies and four battalions as an officer after getting a degree from the University of Arizona in Business Administration. His 39-year career spanned the Cold War through defeating ISIS and everything in between from 1981 to 2020. He served in combat many times, surviving shots, mortars and rockets. He accumulated 52 medals and ribbons, one of the most highly decorated officers of his era.
Fortunately, the site MilitaryCorruption.com had his back the entire way. They said about his case, “The Marine Corps should be deeply ashamed for railroading an innocent man into prison! We have been observing examples of military injustice for over 50 years, but nothing, and we mean nothing quite compares to the abomination of justice that Colonel Daniel H. Wilson suffered at the hands of the United States Marine Corps…A great man who was stabbed in the back by his own people.”
Colonel Wilson believes his mission in life is to be a crusader for military justice. He knows what fixes are needed to make it a fairer system for future patriots joining the military. Wilson also recently wrote a book about getting back to his fighting weight as a Marine. He used the “110 Percent mentality that my Drill Instructor imbued in me at Boot Camp” to lose 110 pounds recently.
The Marine Corps was forced to restore all of his pay and benefits, but invoked administrative punishment in revenge for losing this landmark case by having Wilson put on the retirement roster to be paid as a Lieutenant Colonel, and smearing his 39 years of honorable service by designating it as “Other Than Honorable.” Only the current Secretary of the Navy or President can restore justice to Wilson and his family.
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