San Bernardino Man Gets 20 Years for Buying Guns Used in 2015 Christmas-Time Terror Attack
Enrique Marquez Jr. supplied the weapons that Syed Rizwan Farook & Tashfeen Malik used to kill 14.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in December 2015, the Muslim terror-couple Sayed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 and wounded 21 at a San Bernardino Christmas Party.
The terror duo reportedly left bombs behind that were intended to detonate when first-responders arrived at the scene.
At that time, their neighbor Enrique Marquez was indicted by a federal grand jury of conspiring with the couple. He has now been tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Enrique Marquez Jr. supplied the weapons that Syed Rizwan Farook and Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, used on Dec. 2, 2015, to open fire on a meeting and holiday gathering of San Bernardino County employees who worked with Farook. Minutes later, a post on a Facebook page associated with Malik pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State terror group. The couple fled and died later that day in a gunbattle with authorities.
Marquez, 28, showed no emotion during a federal court hearing as relatives of the victims asked the judge to give him a lengthy sentence for providing Farook the guns years before the shooting, which at the time was the deadliest terror attack in the United States since 9/11.
Gregory Clayborn, whose daughter Sierra was killed, said Marquez should be held responsible for the massacre though he wasn’t the gunman.
“He’s a terrorist, your honor,” Clayborn told the judge. “And if you let him out, he’s going to do it again.”
Marquez tried to claim mental illness for his actions.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Sartoris pushed for a 25-year sentence Friday, saying the 28-year-old Marquez is highly intelligent despite claims of a mental illness made in January when he sought to withdraw his admission that he provided the assault-style rifles.
“His IQ is probably higher than anybody’s in the courtroom,” Sartoris said. “He knew better.”
Further, she said in court, the aborted attacks “created the template” for the shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
But Judge Bernal, while describing Marquez’s crimes as “horrific and terrible offenses,” cited mitigating factors such as Marquez’s troubled upbringing and cooperation with the FBI after his 911 call identified Farook as one of the likely attackers.
Marquez’s relationship with Farook was centered on radical Islamic ideology.
Authorities have said Marquez and Farook knew each other for about a decade. In 2015, investigators said that by 2011, Farook and Marquez were spending most of their time at Farook’s home, reading, listening to lectures and watching videos “involving radical Islamic content.”
Marques also told investigators their contact began to decline, beginning in 2012.
“He had contact with Farook until as late as October of 2015,” Assistant US Attorney Christopher Grigg told reporters Friday. “We don’t know the full extent of their relationship.”
…Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Marquez “was a full, willing, and motivated participant of the conspiracy who not only provided the agreement necessary for the conspiracy to attack (Riverside City College) and (motorists on State Route 91), but also co-designed the attacks with Farook, purchased the two firearms and ammunition to facilitate the attacks, researched bomb making and obtained explosive powder and other bomb-making materials, and visited RCC and SR-91 to sketch out how he and Farook would attack the two locations to maximize casualties.”
Marquez only called the FBI when he realized the weapons could be directly traced back to him.
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Comments
5 years talk about the wheel moving slowly.
He’ll be out in 6 weeks due to concern he will catch the Wuhan Flu. 5 years.. due process was long overdue.
It did give the Democrat Party PF (“patriotic front”) further justification to erode 2A. Fighting Islamophobia with gun control. Unlike St. Louis, the mostly peaceful rioters need not fear injury from loyal California serfs..er.. residents.
This was a murder trial. They take longer than other crimes. Also, the accused usually can’t make bail. I have no problem with the slow timeline, if the person is removed from being a danger to society in the interim.
“ mitigating factors? “—his actions/aid resulted in death sentences for 14 innocent people—let the punishment fit the crime—lord
Time for that to stop. I had a miserable, abusive childhood, but I’ve never killed anyone or supplied weapons to anyone who did.
His troubled upbringing is a mitigating factor? So an unhappy childhood is a valid excuse for helping murder innocent people?
The judge should be in the next cell over from this terrorist!
One of the constants of life – find Muslims, find trouble.
Smartest guy in the room?
Only called the FBI when he realized the weapons could be directly traced back to him?
Must have been a pretty small room.
If you’re buying firearms through a licensed dealer to give to your buddy so he can commit an act of terrorism, you’re only the smartest person in the room if you’re the only person in the room.
Well it was a courtroom- full of lawyers (not legal insurrection type lawyers but more like average lawyers), FBI agents, and jurors (the 12 who don’t know how to get out of jury duty). Maybe the guy was the smartest. 🙂
You forgot to list the federal judge. 🙂
How many years will Facebook Executives get?
Former Venezuelan Communist Government Operative Works for Facebook
Breibart
Too much of the last four years was wasted, and there needs to be a serious reckoning with the woke dictators of Big Tech. Among the many consequences of lockdown has been a massive transfer from small business to global monopolies such as Amazon. So Jeff Bezos is much richer and far more powerful than he was a year back. Amazon is the company store of Covidland: for an increasing number of products, there’s nowhere else to go. – Mark Steyn
I haven’t purchased from Amazon in over four years. I buy everything local, even if it’s bit pricier. COVID did not change that at all.
I had an encounter with Marquez and Sayed Farooq at the Riverside Magnum Range where I frequently shoot with my sons. They saw the AR 300 pistol my son had built and noticed it was built from an 80% lower and had no serial number. They were VERY interested in the process. Sayed Farooq was a civil engineer and attended Centennial High School with my daughter. After the attack, we were contacted by the FBI and interviewed. At no time did they seem suspicious. What I find amazing is that neighbors saw very suspicious activity at Farooq’s home and would not report it due to their fear of being labeled Islamaphobic.
Hillary Clinton and Biden should be in the same cell.
They would be, but for rats Jeff Sessions and William Barr.
Melanie Sartoris pushed for a 25-year sentence Friday, saying the 28-year-old Marquez is highly intelligent despite claims of a mental illness made in January . . . “His IQ is probably higher than anybody’s in the courtroom,” Sartoris said. “He knew better.”
Lawyers really should get outdoors more often; they maybe they wouldn’t spout such bone-headed drivel. Mental illness has nothing to do with IQ. The Unibomber probably had more mental horsepower than the entire squad sent to arrest him all added together, but he’s still nuttier than a fruitcake. Higher IQ types might give you more entertaining forms of madness, but they can still be mad as hatters.
Moral values such as veracity and humility are closer to intelligence than intellectual values such as cleverness and genius and wit. You know a person’s smart when they tell the truth. Anyone can do it! It’s also intelligent.