Staff Sgt. Davonte Hardaway, a military training instructor at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, is facing a special court-martial on June 8 over allegations that he had sex with three Air Force trainees while serving as an instructor, according to base officials. Hardaway, assigned to the 324th Training Squadron, is accused of developing improper relationships with multiple recruits in 2024 and 2025, and the wing says he is no longer training students with the squadron while the case moves forward.
The case has been referred for prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and could bring both criminal and administrative penalties if he is convicted.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations handled the probe and 37th Training Wing commander Col. Willie Cooper sent the charges to trial by special court-martial. The outlet reports that Hardaway has served as a training instructor for roughly two years with the 324th Training Squadron. Wing officials did not publicly detail how the allegations first surfaced.
A charge sheet provided to the San Antonio Express-News alleges Hardaway had sex more than once with two recruits in the spring and summer of 2024 and 2025, and with a third recruit in the summer and winter of 2024. He is charged with failing to obey a general order and with engaging in prohibited activities with a recruit by a person in a position of trust, according to the paper. “In the interest of protecting the accused’s right to a fair trial, this information is not currently releasable,” a wing spokesperson told the newspaper.
What the court-martial could mean
The case will play out in a special court-martial under military law. Depending on any convictions, the court can hand down a bad-conduct discharge, reduction in rank, forfeiture of up to two-thirds of pay and up to one year of confinement. Those jurisdictional limits for special courts-martial are outlined in legal overviews of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Details on sentencing caps and court types are summarized in a Congressional Research Service report on military courts-martial.
Background: Lackland's history and reforms
The new allegation lands at a base that already carries a heavy history on this exact issue. In the early 2010s, Lackland was rocked by a series of misconduct cases involving military training instructors and trainees, which led to multiple prosecutions and a wave of policy changes.
Reporting and official Air Force accounts from that period describe how the service rolled out reforms such as tougher screening for instructors, expanded briefings for trainees and tighter oversight of basic training after several MTIs were charged in a scandal that began in 2011. Those developments and the related convictions are detailed in Air Force reporting on the Lackland cases and the subsequent reviews.
The 37th Training Wing says it is not releasing more specifics on the current case while the court-martial is pending, and that additional information will have to come through filings and open proceedings as the process unfolds. The special court-martial is scheduled to begin June 8 at Lackland, where military prosecutors will present the government’s case. For now, officials are keeping a tight lid on further details about how the allegations made their way to investigators in the first place.
