Pat Dollard | Young Americans

DEFEND OUR MARINES

by Nathaniel R. Helms | June 30, 2008

Note:

If you wish, you can send an e-mail message to sergeants Weemer and Nelson. The forwarding address is Captain Larry Brown at the San Bernadino County CDC. E-mail address: cdc@sbcsd.org. Below is an e-mail from Defend Our Marines…

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

______________________________________________________

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.