Posted on 06/30/2008 6:31:59 PM PDT by RedRover
The federal trial of former Marine Sgt Jose L. Nazario is on hold until August 19, Defend Our Marines has learned.
Presiding US District Judge Steven Larsen issued the order last week. Nazario’s trial was scheduled to begin July 8 at the US District Court for Central California at Riverside.
Judge Larsen has also issued an unusual order to Nazario’s defense attorney Kevin B. McDermott to keep the Grand Jury testimony he received in discovery secret, and to return the transcripts to the court undisclosed to the public upon the completion of the case.
The delay in the Nazario case prolongs the ordeal for Marine sergeants Jermaine Nelson and Ryan Weemer, accused of unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty. They remain in federal custody in the San Bernardino County Jail for contempt of court. Both Marines have refused to cooperate with government prosecutors who provided them with immunity in return for their testimony. The two have also refused to cooperate with government investigators since being indicted in late spring.
Nelson and Weemer (who was shot three times at Fallujah in a face-to-face gunfight with a suspected Chechen terrorist) are confined to a 12-man holding cell for refusing to testify against Nazario, said McDermott from his Orange County office.
“They are tough, they survived worse in Fallujah and are hanging in there, said Joseph E. Low IV, Nelson’s lawyer.
Both men voluntarily appeared before Larsen in response to government subpoenas.
Since being jailed the Marine Corps has stopped all their pay and allowances for being absent without leave, Lowe said.
“They (USMC) told them, “We appreciate your trying to protect the honor of the Corps and all that, but we are stopping your pay anyway,’” McDermott explained.
Low, the former Marine infantryman representing Nelson, said Monday that he intends to appear before Judge Larsen on Tuesday at 12:30 PM Pacific Time seeking to have the two Marines returned to Camp Pendleton while the case is on hold.
“Hopefully I will have some good news tomorrow, “Low said.
Government prosecutors are trying to force Weemer and Nelson to tell the Grand Jury what happened at Fallujah on November 9, 2004 when four enemy combatants were allegedly killed on Nazario’s orders. They were captured with their ammunition and weapons in a house being used by the insurgency as a strong point to resist the attack.
Weemer was jailed June 12 for telling Larsen he would not testify against Nazario. Nelson was jailed by Larsen for the second time last week on an identical contempt of court complaint. Both men could be held for up to 18 months or until the grand jury is dismissed, their lawyers said.
US District Judge Percy Anderson ordered Nelson jailed in Los Angeles in late May 22 after Nelson refused several opportunities to testify and released him a week later.
The investigation into the 2004 incident began after Weemer made admissions of misconduct while undergoing a polygraph examination for employment with the United States Secret Service. The Secret Service forwarded the information to the Naval Criminal Investigation Service for investigation.
Special Agent Mark Fox managed to extract admissions from Nelson in the spring of 2007 before he was represented by legal counsel. Fox then used his testimony as the basis for the government’s complaint.
Nazario claims the incident never happened.
Several other Marines who were there that day refused to testify, offered conflicting testimony, or swore they had no knowledge of the allegations.
Investigators for the government claim to have located a site that the alleged killings occurred. This claim is based upon a photograph taken by a Marine who photographed the exterior of a house in Fallujah and sent to his mother in Texas, the evidence shows. The Marine told Fox he took the picture for posterity sake, as it was the first occasion he was able to use his demolition skills on the battlefield.
From the photograph, investigators claim they identified a location within the city and subsequently contacted the occupants of the house. The occupants were interviewed and told the investigators they had been in Syria for medical treatment at the time of the operation.
The owners of the reputed crime scene then told investigators that when they returned to the house they did not observe any bodies or other evidence of conflict in the house, evidence already introduced revealed.
Defense attorneys claim that because of the “paucity of evidence,” the assistant United States Attorneys in charge of the case have decided that the charges already lodged against Nazario were not sufficient to convince him to make a confession and returned to the grand jury in April seeking to obtain a superseding indictment for murder and for use of a weapon in the commission of a felony.
So far the Grand Jury, which is scheduled to be released in July, has not returned the enhanced charges, McDermott said Monday.
These same assistant US Attorneys subsequently issued immunity orders to Nelson and Weemer to try and compel them to testify against Nazario before the Grand Jury.
Captain Larry Brown
San Bernadino County CDC
E-mail address: cdc@sbcsd.org
Sir,
Please forward to federal prisoners Marine Corps Sgt. Jermaine Nelson and Sgt Ryan Weemer our support and encouragement. Hang in there, Marines.
Semper Fi,
David Allender
Defend Our Marines
So they have a 5th amendment right against self incrimination but are in jail anyway. What is wrong with that picture.
Reading this could be hazardous to your health, ping.
The prosecutor is a scumbag for trying to create a criminal case against these Marines. He is going out of his way to charge these guys with a crime. This is ridiculous.
Just not right...
You are 100% correct.
Thanks for the address.
You’re welcome, Dubya!
Kinda like prisoners of war. Only our guys.
What the hell is happening to our country?
During the time that I served, civilians could not keep me because I was regarded as federal property. How is this passed over now?
The water has been muddied by a recent law called the Military Extraterritorial Extradition Act (MEJA). It was passed by Congress in 2000 to give government prosecutors a way to charge civilians and former service members for alleged criminal acts they committed while serving overseas.
Former sergeant Jose Nazario, now a civilian without any military obligation, was charged under the MEJA in civilian court. His two former squadmates, Weemer and Nelson were subpeoned as witnesses and so found themselves subject to federal, civilian, court. And, in being jailed, to being absent without leave.
WOW.
Those cases and this case read like they are out of the twilight zone.
We have a serious infestation problem in our government.
"We have a serious infestation problem in our government."
At the risk of p**ssing you guys off, I would ask what exactly have you done to correct the problem?
After all, it's not as if you just found out about it today.
In fact, some of us have been practically screaming about it for the past 40 or more years, but it falls upon deaf ears, apparently.
“What the hell is happening to our country?”
It is being taken over.
Me? Obviously not enough!
I've been at it for only about 15 years, myself, and I'm now 61.
Will be working my fair booth in August.
Semper Fi
Years ago, in a military ethics class, the instructor pointed out just this kind of persecution of soldiers, that has existed from the onset of the modern age, and probably long before.
At or before the end of a conflict, people who did not fight in the war, who at best never left the rear area and most likely were never even in the theater, will demand and get a trial of those who served honorably and in the thick of things, chosen almost at random.
They prosecutors will have a clear vision of events in hindsight, most of which conclusions were reached in the absence of data, while in comfortable recline in an padded chair, and have their basis in domestic politics. Guilt or innocence will also be determined far in advance of the proceedings, as well as who shall suffer.
They will also do what is necessary to insure that there is no argument or defense against their prejudiced decisions, as that would almost certainly generate support for those preselected for persecution, and could well result in the embarrassment of incremental vindication.
It will be vital to their efforts to find a turncoat in the ranks, willing to sacrifice his peers, superiors and inferiors for either protection from prosecution himself, or reward.
This is an issue of military ethics only because ethical soldiers will be put before a court devoid of ethics. And this instructor in ethics pointed out that this is the final, unavoidable battle for the accused soldiers, and they must treat it as such. And as with war, fairness has little to do with the fight.
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