Plea deal said in the works for Hamdania defendant; Corpsman

A Navy corpsman has reportedly reached a deal that would drop a murder charge and allow him to plead guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy in the April death of an Iraqi man, an attorney for one of the men's co-defendants said Tuesday evening.

The reported agreement for Petty Officer Melson Bacos would require he serve no more than 12 months in the brig and would allow the Wisconsin native to stay in the service after that punishment is served, attorney Victor Kelley said.

Attempts to reach Marine Corps officials for comment were not immediately successful.

A deal would represent the first plea agreement struck by any of the eight defendants, who include Bacos and seven Marines, all based at Camp Pendleton.

Bacos and his squad mates were charged June 21 with premeditated murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and related offenses in the April 26 death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

Bacos' attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan III of San Diego, said Tuesday evening he could confirm a deal was in the works.

If there was an agreement for his client to plead guilty to any of the charges, Sullivan said, it would be inappropriate for him to comment until a signed agreement was in place.

Kelley, who represents Cpl. Trent Thomas, wasn't the only one to report a deal was being reached between military prosecutors and Bacos.

The mother of another defendant, who did not want her name published, said Tuesday evening she also had been told of the development and expressed concern for how that might affect her son's case.

In the Marine Corps' charging documents, Bacos is accused of stealing an AK-47 assault rifle and a shovel, helping abduct Awad and later firing rounds from the rifle to make it appear the man was planting a roadside bomb.

Bacos is now scheduled to go before a hearing officer Oct. 19 to help determine whether the charges against him should proceed to court-martial.

The men from the 2nd platoon of Kilo Company attached to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment have been in the Camp Pendleton brig since late May.

On Monday evening, Sullivan released six video clips of Bacos. The material is intended to help the public understand his client's war experiences, the attorney said Tuesday morning.

In the clips, Bacos talks of what he saw and heard on his first deployment to Iraq during a December 2004 firefight in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah. Several men were killed and hurt during the fighting.

The videos were shot by Sullivan in August and are posted on his Web site as well as at nctimes.com.

"Unless you sit down and listen to this young man, you can't get a feel for the combat he has experienced," Sullivan said Tuesday morning. "Most people don't understand what these men go through, and I think it is important that people have a chance to hear and see him describe what he has seen."

Bacos does not address any aspect of the allegations that he took part in the kidnapping and killing of the 52-year-old Awad in the village of Hamdania. Instead, the soft-spoken corpsman speaks at length about treating injured Marines and the feelings he experienced during and after a house-to-house battle that took place in Fallujah on Dec. 12, 2004.

"Everyone was scared," the son of Filipino immigrants says during one of the clips. "You could walk into a room and just get ... lit up."

Gary Solis, a former military attorney and trial judge and a now a military law professor at Georgetown University, said the video seemed irrelevant to the charges that Bacos faces.

"It's not going to be admitted at trial, so the attorney may be trying to get the word out to possible military jurors who may see a clip on television, or he could be trying to gin up public sympathy for his client," Solis said in a telephone interview.

The professor added that he believed the chances of the video helping Bacos' defense are "pretty remote."

The clips were shot in a conference room at the base brig where Sullivan meets with Bacos, who is married to a Navy corpsman and has an 18-month-old daughter.

At several points in the clips, Bacos talks of the 19 Marines from his battalion who were killed and numerous others who were injured during his first deployment.

"I could have died so many times," he says at one point. "I thank God that I have my life today. I realize how precious life is."

The former high school wrestler also says he often thinks of the men he saw die in Iraq, and he expressed particular concern for their families.

"It's heartbreaking to think that some men would never see their kids again or their kids see them," he says. "I think about how hard it is on their wives."

In the end, however, Bacos says troops in Iraq know they have a duty to perform: "When a Marine died, everyone was sad and somber, but everyone knew they had to get up in the morning, and they still had a job to do."

Three of the men from the platoon, Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate Jr. and Pfc. John Jodka III had their pretrial hearings in September and were ordered by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis last week to stand trial.

Magincalda and Jodka are scheduled to be formally arraigned on the charges at 10 a.m. today, their first opportunity to enter a plea.

Pretrial hearings for the remaining defendants are scheduled for the week of Oct. 15.

The Hamdania case is separate from allegations that another Camp Pendleton squad acted outside the military's rules of engagement when it killed 24 civilians in the city of Haditha on Nov. 19. That case has been under investigation for months and the Marine Corps is expected to announce soon whether any of those men will face criminal charges.

-- Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

Sounds fair if they expunge the record after a year and a day. Released without trial would be better.

By the way---since this war of terror is not fought under Geneva rules---can we reissue flame throwers when ever house to house searchers are required. This would put terror in the terrorists and save American lives.

3 posted on 10/04/2006 8:39:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ......Help the "Pendleton 8' and families -- http://www.freerepublic.com/~normsrevenge/)

Help the 'Pendleton 8' and their families.

Charity for the Pendleton 8. Click here. Paypal Available!! For every donation of $20, the doner will receive a free T-shirt to help spread the news of these brave Americans. Be sure to include your size of MEdium, Large, X-Large or XX-Large. Click on the T-shirts for a direct link to PAYPAL.

PAYPAL VERIFIED ACCOUNT

The 'Pendleton 8': A look at the 7 Marines and Navy corpsman charged in Hamdania incident
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1670877/posts

Some web sites with more info and also accepting donations.

Cpl. Robert Pennington
http://www.defendrob.com

PFC John Jodka
http://www.innocentmarine.com

Tyler Jackson
http://www.fightingfortyler.com

Cpl. Marshall Magincalda
http://www.defendourmarine.com

Cpl. Trent Thomas
http://www.defensefundformyhero.com

Lance Cpl Jerry Shumate
http://friendsofjerry.blogspot.com/

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Melson J. Bacos
http://patriotdefensefund.com/

Other sites supporting the men:

http://www.defendthetruth.com

http://www.warrior-fund.org

http://www.pendleton8.com

http://www.marinedefensefund.com/

If your financial situation permits, please help as you can to cover legal representation costs.

Thanks!

4 posted on 10/04/2006 8:40:06 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ......Help the "Pendleton 8' and families -- http://www.freerepublic.com/~normsrevenge/)

5 posted on 10/04/2006 9:14:25 PM PDT by Txsleuth (FREEPATHON TIME----You need FR, you know you do, so how about donating??)

TWO POSSIBILITIES:
A. The Corps is going to try to use his coerced statement

or

B. The prosecution has no case

We'll have to just endure the process and hope for the best at this point. Lots of twists and turns likely ahead.

Re: the Navy corpsman, he has a young wife and child. Had read that if he admitted to 2 charges, he could even stay in the service. Might just be me but that seemes a bit odd, for some reason.

7 posted on 10/05/2006 10:13:13 AM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ......Help the "Pendleton 8' and families -- http://www.freerepublic.com/~normsrevenge/)

That part about him staying in the service struck me as odd also...but, this whole thing is confusing me....

Thanks for keeping me up to date.

8 posted on 10/05/2006 10:17:27 AM PDT by Txsleuth (FREEPATHON TIME----You need FR, you know you do, so how about donating??)

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