KC area school board candidate has military criminal record. He says it doesn’t matter
In his bid for a Kansas City school board seat in the April 8 special election, Joseph R. Nelson says he wants to build a shared investment in public education through transparency, equity and accountability.
But nowhere in his social media bios or his campaign website does he detail his time as a former lieutenant commander for the Navy Reserve. Or his several years of fighting military criminal charges — and subsequent convictions — involving allegations against him, as well as other reservists, while serving in Bahrain in 2017-2018.
Nelson was among several sailors initially charged in relation to what prosecutors then described as a sex trafficking ring, where some were accused of patronizing Thai sex workers and housing them in their off-post apartments, court records and media reports from that time show. According to a February 2021 article from Military.com, Nelson was the only officer to be charged; at least nine sailors were accused of sex crimes and human trafficking.
An online search of Nelson’s name and the incident in Bahrain eight years ago brings up several articles from Military.com and The Navy Times, as well as court records from his appeals. Contacted about these military criminal charges and his 2019 court-martial, Nelson downplayed their relevance to his life now.
“Those cases, they didn’t stick,” Nelson told The Star in a phone call. “There was nothing there. … The whole thing should have been overturned because there was no evidence.”
But, at least so far, that hasn’t happened.
Court records show that Nelson was initially charged with nine military criminal counts, including several counts for conduct unbecoming, with one allegation that he “wrongfully and dishonorably fail(ed) to report misconduct committed by other members of the uniformed services, including patronizing prostitutes and sex trafficking.”
Nelson’s case was referred to a general court-martial on Sept. 28, 2018, and he was arraigned on Oct. 18, 2018, court records said. Prior to a “trial on the merits,” the government withdrew and dismissed four of the charges, records show.
At trial, Nelson was convicted of four of the five remaining military counts, including going absent without authority, patronizing prostitutes, and two specifications of conduct unbecoming an officer.
A 2021 appellant court brief, written by Nelson’s attorney at the time, described the background of the case.
“While at a local bar, Wranglers, he met women who turned out to be prostitutes,” the brief stated in a section titled, “Statement of Facts.” “Although he occasionally engaged in sexual intercourse with them, he eventually developed non-sexual friendships with these women.
“When these women became fearful of the controlling and dangerous people they lived with, they sought refuge with LCDR Nelson. Because LCDR Nelson had several extra rooms in his house in Bahrain, he allowed the women to come live with him in order to safely get on their feet.”
The brief went on to say that Nelson treated the women “with respect” and did not charge them rent, letting them stay in his spare rooms until they could support themselves. In exchange, the brief said, the women helped Nelson “by taking care of his cooking and cleaning.”
An emailed attempt to reach his past counsel resulted in an auto response referring questions to another defense attorney. That attorney did not respond.
Court records show that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service searched Nelson’s home in early 2018 and “found that Thai prostitutes were living with him.”
Months later, NCIS again searched his residence and found evidence, to include a Thai woman hiding behind a bedroom door, according to background spelled out in a ruling from the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals on findlaw.com.
“Although his motives in allowing the prostitutes to live with him may have been mainly altruistic, after being put on notice in January 2018 that his conduct in this regard was under law enforcement scrutiny, he persisted in living with the prostitutes until May 2018,” the ruling said.
When asked by The Star if authorities on one occasion found a sex worker living in his home, Nelson said they had not.
“They found my housekeeper,” he said.
‘Transparency is important to me’
One of Nelson’s convictions was tossed out after an opinion by the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA), written about in the Military.com article in February 2021. That opinion found that Nelson was “wrongly convicted and sentenced on one charge of conduct unbecoming.”
Two convictions remain, Nelson said. One for unauthorized absence and another for conduct unbecoming.
“The last ones are administrative on the military side that I’m still fighting,” Nelson said. “There’s nothing that translates to civilian life. When you do an actual background check nothing will come up.”
Nelson said that “other officers” have been through what he’s going through.
“It can take up to 10 years for them to get their name cleared and I’m still working on that,” Nelson said. “Again, my record is clean. My active duty status, my honorable discharge is clear, I’m at the VA. I’m not sure where this tip came from but there’s nothing to it.”
Nelson provided a copy of his honorable discharge, which was issued in 2011 and related to a previous term of service. After his reactivation and deployment to Bahrain, and the “subsequent charges and 2019 trial,” he said he was not immediately discharged.
“Instead, I transitioned out of active service under administrative separation due to the charges — this is not the same as a dishonorable discharge,” he said in an email to The Star. “Currently, I am actively pursuing an administrative review to upgrade this separation to fully honorable status, which is a lengthy bureaucratic process.”
According to an article in FEDweek, a publication for federal employees, an administrative separation “is a process applied to a service member who is seen to have violated the standards, practices, or codes of military law or conduct in some substantive way.”
Nelson said he maintains his innocence and will “continue to administratively pursue reinstatement.”
“Transparency is important to me,” he said, “and I appreciate the opportunity to clearly explain this.”
More questions surface
Nelson sat down for a Facebook Live conversation Thursday on “Policy Pulse: Education Edition,” a new local weekly broadcast that addresses what’s happening with education on the local, state and national level.
Catina K. Taylor and Cecilia Belser Patton, hosts of the broadcast, are interviewing Kansas City school board candidates individually before the April 8 election.
Nelson initially spoke to the pair about the need for transparency and honesty in general, even when conversations can be uncomfortable.
Taylor told him she was glad he brought that up, because “it may get a little uncomfortable tonight with us.”
“Some information has surfaced from your time in the military that raises questions for some voters about past conduct,” Taylor said. “My question to you is, are you willing to speak to that chapter of your life?”
After he said he was, she asked about several points, including his discharge from the Navy and “that you co-habitated with sex workers.” Taylor also explained that she looked at court records that explained the charges and convictions in military court.
“We want to have an opportunity to just have a real clear conversation about that period in your life,” she told him. “What can you share with us?”
Nelson said he was “happy to address” the situation.
“Because it would be disingenuine (sic) to make the statements I made earlier and then not walk the talk, right?” he said.
Nelson said while serving in Bahrain, he ended up staying longer than he expected. When he was “tired of eating Taco Bell” he said he hired someone locally to prepare his meals and take care of the house he had.
At one point, someone said to him, “‘Hey, I need help,’” Nelson said. “And I helped them find a job with someone on base. … Turns out that that person had been forced into some unfortunate situations.”
The incident was reported to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and that agency launched an investigation. During that, Nelson said, his name came up as someone who offered help. He said he ended up talking to NCIS as a witness and ultimately he faced military charges.
“Most of that went away before it even went to court,” he said. “I was asked several times to sign different deals so I could go home, and I refused, because I wasn’t guilty of anything. And then eventually the process played out.”
“And so when you look at the final result,” Nelson said.
Taylor responded: “I did.”
“All of that is gone,” Nelson said.
And Taylor responded: “It’s not,” referring to the last remaining convictions.
‘Trust of the community’
Taylor, a former K-12 teacher in the Kansas City area for 15 years, said the weekly broadcast is a way to inform people in Kansas City about what’s going on in their elections. It’s important, she said, for voters to know that a candidate has the legal requirements to run for school board and the level of expertise needed to serve.
Another critical aspect, Taylor said, is that a candidate “has to have the trust of the community as a representative of the community.”
“And to me, that requires a level of transparency and integrity, especially when you’re talking about children and families,” she told The Star. “So these allegations, these convictions directly go to the moral character, integrity that I think needs to be discussed when you’re talking about representing, interacting with children and families.”
“I think, the constituents, the stakeholders — namely children, families, teachers — deserve to know who seeks to sit in a seat and represent their interests.”
Belser Patton also inquired about Nelson’s military background on the broadcast.
“The question I have is that with the world that we live in, where you can Google a person’s name and you can know everything about them,” she said, “ … I wonder why you did not lead with this information and then move from there, because people are going to find it out.”
That’s what happens in politics, she said, “even at school board levels of politics.”
“The reason I wouldn’t lead with this is because the allegations were not proven to be substantial,” Nelson said. “And then anything that even made it to court was downgraded or overturned. So again, the justice system did what it was supposed to do. I cooperated the entire time. I was very transparent with them.”
“… The ultimate result is I don’t have anything that translates to civilian life, and I’m still pursuing the administrative review in order to basically clear my record on the military side.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2025 at 3:11 PM.
