Enrique Marquez, who supplied the assault rifles used to kill 14 people in a massacre in San Bernardino, California, this month, was arrested on Thursday and charged with crimes, including conspiring to support terrorists in plotting an earlier attack that was aborted.
Court papers show that he and one of the attackers, his longtime friend and neighbor, Syed Rizwan Farook, had steeped themselves for years in radical and violent Muslim propaganda, including the teachings of extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and bomb-making techniques from an al-Qaeda magazine.
Marquez, 24, has told investigators that he and Farook had been discussing radical Islam since 2007. They made plans in 2011 and 2012 to launch deadly attacks on the college they had attended and on a busy California freeway.
Photo: AP
Marquez bought not only the guns used in the San Bernardino shooting, but also the smokeless powder that Farook used to build pipe bombs, according to documents filed in US District Court in Riverside on Thursday.
He also faces a count of lying on gun purchase forms to conceal that he was really buying them for Farook, and one of defrauding the immigration system by entering into a sham marriage with a Russian immigrant.
The court papers filed on Thursday offered the first picture of how Farook, a US-born Muslim whose parents are from Pakistan, became radicalized — long before the rise of the Islamic State — and who his influences were.
Photo: Reuters
The documents offer previously unreported details about his actions and attitudes, including his disdain for American Muslims who went into the military and killed other Muslims, along with the specifics of the attacks he and Marquez had plotted and the weaponry they amassed.
Marquez lived next door to Farook, who introduced him to Islam 10 years ago. Marquez told authorities he converted to Islam around the age of 16 and four years later was spending most of his time at Farook’s home, reading, listening to and watching “radical Islamic content” that included al-Qaeda instructions on how to make bombs
In 2012, Marquez got cold feet, spooked by the arrests of some local men for plotting jihad.
Two years later, Farook met his wife, Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani whom he brought to the US and with whom he carried out the attack.
On Dec. 2, Farook and Malik stormed a meeting of Farook’s coworkers at the San Bernardino County health department, killing 14 people and injuring 22 others. They died later that day in a gunbattle with police.
The criminal complaint says that when the shootings took place, Marquez was at work as a security guard at a Wal-Mart store. He also sometimes worked at a bar, doing odd jobs.
Marquez appeared in court on Thursday afternoon, where a judge read him the charges.
He was told to return on Monday for a bail hearing. An arraignment was scheduled for Jan. 6, when he is expected to enter a plea.
The conspiracy charge against Marquez carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and the firearms and visa charges, 10 years each.
Investigators said that a clearly distraught Marquez almost immediately confessed his connection to the crimes to a 911 operator and to his mother, and spent a few days in a hospital psychiatric ward before talking with the FBI.
Authorities said that weeks before the massacre, Marquez wrote on Facebook that “my life turned ridiculous.”
When a friend responded, “I think everyone leads multiple lives,” Marquez replied, “Involved in terrorist plots, drugs, antisocial behavior, marriage, might go to prison for fraud, etc.”
Early on the day after the shooting, he called 911 and said “My neighbor. He did the San Bernardino shooting.” Later during that call, he said that Farook “used my gun in the shooting,” and “they can trace all the guns back to me.”
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