Posted on 02/12/2005 6:02:42 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Today, Second Lt. Ilario G. Pantano of the Marine Corps is the suspect in the murder of two people in Iraq. But years ago, he was known to his friends as a Renaissance man, a mover and shaker in the downtown Manhattan world of independent films and Internet television.
By November 2000 he had founded his own company, Filter Media, and later joined other alumni of the elite Horace Mann School, who were running the Shooting Gallery, a film company that produced "Sling Blade," "You Can Count on Me" and other movies.
He had served as a marine in the Persian Gulf war of 1991; he left the corps to attend New York University when he was 21. Later he was an energy trader for Goldman Sachs, he delivered food to homeless shelters, and he helped a friend promote his new restaurant.
But after watching the World Trade Center come crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001, taking the lives of several friends, his life took another turn.
He moved to Battery Park City a few months afterward and passed ground zero daily. He told friends that the sight pained his heart.
James Rafferty, who has known Lieutenant Pantano for 11 years, said he believed that the terror attack prompted Lieutenant Pantano's decision to re-enlist in the Marines.
"I think for Ilario it kind of brought him to the realization that he is a marine and there are things that need to be done so that stuff like this doesn't happen again," Mr. Rafferty said. "It would be hard to sit back and not be a part of that."
He added, "I think he felt like his brothers are going to fight for our freedom, and if he still can, then he will."
After re-enlisting, Lieutenant Pantano went to Iraq with the Second Marine Division, landing in March 2004. He fought in the battle of Falluja last spring.
Now, his lawyer said, he is facing murder charges that stemmed from his role in the shooting deaths of two Iraqi men south of Baghdad on April 15.
The shooting occurred during a search of a vehicle suspected of transporting insurgents, said the lawyer, Charles Gittins, who added that Lieutenant Pantano could face the death penalty.
"The Marine Corps is saying he is a murderer, and those are slanderous allegations," Mr. Gittins said.
Lieutenant Pantano is back in the United States with his wife and two children, at his home in Wilmington, N.C., near Camp Lejeune. Maj. Matt Morgan, a Marine Corps spokesman, said a hearing in the coming weeks would determine formal charges. Major Morgan said no further information would be released before the hearing.
Through his lawyer, Lieutenant Pantano declined a request to be interviewed. But, the lawyer said, "He is fighting mad."
Friends and family members are rallying to his defense, unable to reconcile the man they know as a bright, if enigmatic, level-headed city boy equally conversant in movies and military technology with the thought that he could have deliberately killed people without justification.
"Ilario returned from Iraq a hero but there are some dark forces still trying to bring him down," his wife, Jill Chapman, wrote in an e-mail message to friends.
People who knew him from his days in film and media in New York struggled to absorb the news.
"I find this all fairly unbelievable," said Vladimir Edelman, a former business partner who founded Filter Media with Lieutenant Pantano in 2000. Now defunct, it was a consulting agency to the budding interactive television industry that once counted Sony Pictures Digital and MSNBC among its clients, according to a company press release.
Friends said they found Lieutenant Pantano, who grew up in Hell's Kitchen, to be a curious player on the Internet media scene. Some knew that, fulfilling a boyhood fascination with the military, he had served in the Marines in the early 1990's. They surmised that he had entered the high-charged, creative atmosphere of Internet media and film because it appealed to his drive and artistic inclinations.
"He is an incredibly passionate, creative guy," Mr. Edelman said. "I was like, 'What are you doing here? You were a former sniper? How does that happen?' He was not your typical Hoo-ah military guy, but he was always patriotic."
Lieutenant Pantano was an executive in the Internet division of the Shooting Gallery.
But the company fell victim to the downturn in the economy in mid-2001. He ultimately left it in the months before he re-enlisted in the Marines in early 2003.
Lieutenant Pantano's mother, Merry Pantano, suggested that her son might have headed back to Iraq if the Marines' investigation had not arisen.
"He was fierce in battle and compassionate at home as any of his friends or colleagues can tell you," she wrote on the Web site she set up, defendthedefenders.org. "He has often demonstrated he would do anything to protect and save the lives of his men, and until he received a charge sheet for murder, he was preparing to go back to Iraq with his brothers and do it again."
I have to tell you this gives me pause. I will be most interested in the comments of my fellow Freepers on this Marines charges.
His mom has set up the following website Who has their Back?
This is just very weird. Scapegoat?
I honestly do not know what to make of it. Scapegoat is something to consider.
I sincerely DO NOT CARE how many of these scum we kill, nor how many heads we put panties on.
This man deserves a medal imho, and that is that.
Let's see if we can litigate/Politically Correct our entire civilization into death here against the islamofacists, because they will love it, if we do.
Sick, sick stuff, Chick.
Just Bring'em home.
Bring'em on is not working out all that well.
God bless and keep all those kids over there, and everyone else in the line of fire.
Bush and Rummy are right behind the man, way, way behind him.
I believe the Corps is looking out for the welfare of this officer. Three months after the action an enlisted man complained and from that point on everything that has happened is dictated by regulations.
Resolving the complaint this way will allow Pantano to maintain an unblemished record and remain a Marine.
This is a hero. This crap will not stand. His mom was just on the Tammy Bruce show.
What ever happened to the little scum bag traitor that threw the grenade into the tent of his own military bothers. Did they hang him. Does he get the death penalty? I sure hope so....Let this Marine go. Let him do what he was sent to do...May the Lord have Mercy.
"Three months after the action an enlisted man complained and from that point on everything that has happened is dictated by regulations."
Right, I remember that now.
Doug, I HOPE you are correct in your assessment.
An enlistment including a combat tour, and about 2 years into a second enlistment with a second combat tour, and still just a 2nd Lt? Was he an enlisted man during his first round or has he for some reason not advanced in rank?
I did not know officers enlisted / re-enlisted. Question, was he at one time an enlised person and then promoted to Lt. ?
The requested document does not exist on this server. cannot access your link
They don't. Sounds like another case of a reporter who is too lazy to understand the military and the difference between an enlistment and accepting a commission.
U.S. Marine charged with murdering two Iraqis
Fri Feb 11, 2005 2:04 AM GMT
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By Jane Sutton
MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine has been charged with premeditated murder and could face the death penalty for shooting two Iraqi men during a vehicle search near a weapons cache in Iraq last year, the Marine's attorney says.
The Marine Corps released a statement on Thursday saying 2nd Lieutenant Ilario G. Pantano was charged on February 1 for his involvement in the shooting deaths of two Iraqi men on April 15, 2004, during combat operations in Iraq.
The release said the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division, Major General Richard Huck, had convened an investigation to determine if Pantano should stand trial, and details of the charges would not be released. A spokesman at Camp Lejuene, the North Carolina base where Pantano is stationed, did not return calls seeking comment,
Pantano's civilian attorney, Charles Gittens, said the 33-year-old Marine was charged with premeditated murder and "he's made it pretty firmly clear that he is not guilty." The crime carries the death penalty but the Marines have not said whether they will seek that punishment if he is convicted, Gittens said.
Pantano was the commander of a Marine platoon sent to search a suspected insurgent hide-out in an area south of Baghdad on April 15. The Marines found weapons, ammunition and bomb-making material in the building, and saw two men fleeing in a sport utility vehicle, Gittens said.
The Marines shot out the vehicle's tires to force it to a halt, took the two men into custody and ordered them to rip out the seats and the interior of the vehicle during a search for booby traps and secret compartments, Gittens said.
One of the men turned suddenly toward Pantano "as if to attack," and the pair kept moving when Pantano ordered them to stop, Gittens said.
"He (Pantano) thought he was in danger and he fired and he killed them and that's what we do to terrorists who don't listen to orders. ... It's a combat situation, kill or be killed," the attorney said.
Pantano feared the men may have been trying to detonate explosives remotely, Gittens said.
"What's he supposed to do, wait until he's standing in the inferno?" the attorney added.
Pantano served three more months in Iraq after the shooting and returned to Camp Lejeune when his tour of duty ended. The former commodities trader is from New York City and also fought during the first Gulf War, Gittens said.
He had not been placed in confinement or otherwise restricted at Camp Lejeune, the Marines said in their statement.
The investigators could recommend Pantano face court-martial, receive administrative discipline or that the charges be dropped altogether, the Marines said.
Pantano's mother, Merry Pantano, has established a Web site (http://www.defendthedefenders.org/pages/1/index.htm) to raise money and awareness for the defence of her son and other soldiers and Marines facing combat-related charges.
"I won't sit idly by while his reputation, honour and sacrifices are diminished by bureaucrats squeamish with the sight of blood while our country is at war," she says on the site.
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