Marquez-Complaint-Charging-Document-12-17Enrique Marquez, the friend of terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, was arrested Dec. 17 and charged with conspiring to give material support to a terrorist plot, according to a charging statement released by federal officials.
Marquez-Complaint-Charging-Document-12-17 https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2648603/Marquez-Complaint-Charging-Document-12-17.pdf
Marquez, 24, was also charged in federal court with making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of firearms used in the attack, the Justice Department announced.
These charges are the first to stem from what became a sprawling global investigation into the Dec. 2 massacre at an office holiday gathering, a probe that has remained focused on the man who once lived next door to one of the attackers.
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple with a young baby, killed 14 people and wounded 21 others in what authorities said was a terrorist attack. The couple died in a shootout with police hours later.
Officials say that Marquez and Farook, former neighbors, had discussed mounting a attack in 2012, a year before the FBI says Farook and his future wife began corresponding online about waging violent jihad.
The FBI arrested Marquez on Thursday and he is expected to make his first court appearance in Riverside, Calif., later in the day.
“While there currently is no evidence that Mr. Marquez participated in the Dec. 2, 2015 attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences,” U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker of the Central District of California said in a statement.
Authorities also said Thursday that in addition to buying the guns used by the husband-and-wife attackers, Marquez had bought explosive material used to construct the pipe bomb authorities found at the Inland Regional Center after the shooting attack.
Marquez and Farook were friends who fixed up cars together and were also connected through marriage. Last year, Marquez married Mariya Chernykh, and her sister Tatiana is married to Farook’s brother, a Navy veteran named Syed Raheel Farook. A co-worker of Marquez said the marriage to Chernykh was arranged and described it as strained.
Marquez has also told the FBI that he and Farook talked about mounting some kind of attack in 2012, according to senior U.S. law enforcement officials. But he said said they were scared off after a terrorism investigation in Riverside, Calif., that year ended with four local men arrested for plotting to kill Americans in Afghanistan. The men were convicted and sentenced to prison.
Authorities say Marquez legally purchased two assault rifles in 2011 and 2012 that were eventually used in the massacre this month at the Inland Regional Center. California law states that transferring gun ownership from one person to another must be done by a registered dealer. Exemptions include transfers from a parent to an adult child or transfers between spouses.
Some Democratic lawmakers responded immediately with vows to push legislation to tighten gun trafficking laws.
“We must do everything we can to ensure that deadly weapons – like the rifles used in the San Bernardino shootings – do not fall into the hands of terrorists, violent criminals, and drug traffickers,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “Law enforcement officials have complained for years that they lack effective tools necessary to investigate and deter straw purchasers and gun traffickers. Today’s arrest of the individual who provided the rifles for the San Bernardino shooters is a reminder that we need to strengthen our laws to give law enforcement agents and prosecutors the tools they need to fight terrorism and violent crime.”
Leahy said he would reintroduce legislation to make straw purchasing a federal crime and establish tough penalties for those who traffic guns to terrorists and criminals.
Law enforcement authorities searched Marquez’s home three days after the shooting. At the time, Marquez was not charged with a crime, and officials said he was cooperating with the investigation. He had checked himself into a mental-health facility in the aftermath of the shooting, but has cooperated with the FBI after he was tracked down.
Two days before his Riverside home was raided, Marquez had posted a garbled message on Facebook: “I’m. Very sorry sguys. It was a pleasure.” When he didn’t show up for work the next day as a doorman at a pirate-themed neighborhood bar, his co-workers began to worry that he may have become suicidal. Much more detail here.
