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Defend Our Marines | Nathaniel R. Helms | Thursday, September 4, 2008 [pdf]Riverside, California – A reporter quickly learns that nothing is ever as it seems. That was never more apparent than at the recent US District Court trial of a former Marine acquitted of war crimes that allegedly occured in Fallujah, Iraq almost four years ago. Former sergeant and infantry squad leader Jose L. Nazario was a Riverside Police Department probationary patrolman when he was arrested last year by federal agents and charged in US District Court with killing two enemy prisoners of war. “Was” is the operative word...

Jury acquits former Marine in killing of IraqisThe Associated Press Fri, Aug 29, 2008 (1:42 a.m.) Jurors wept and embraced former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr. after acquitting him of voluntary manslaughter in the killings of unarmed Iraqi detainees during a fierce 2004 battle. Tears rolled down Nazario's cheeks and courtroom spectators openly sobbed and cheered Thursday for Nazario, who was the first U.S. veteran tried by a civilian court for alleged actions in combat. "It's been a long, hard year for my family," Nazario said outside the courtroom. "I need a moment to catch my breath and try to...

Prosecutors faced uphill fight in proving 2004 killingsA former Camp Pendleton Marine acquitted last week in the slaying of four detainees during a 2004 battle for the city of Fallujah, Iraq, says his most vivid memory of those days was "constant fear." "We were running out of ammo and we weren't able to clear every house," Jose L. Nazario Jr. said Friday, one day after a U.S. District Court civilian jury declared him not guilty of manslaughter and related charges in the first-ever trial of its kind. "We were moving past buildings and structures where we could have been ambushed...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Aug. 29) -- Jurors wept and embraced former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr. after acquitting him of voluntary manslaughter in the killings of unarmed Iraqi detainees during a fierce 2004 battle.

Former Marine Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario Jr., 28, center, from New York, speaks about his federal trial with his attorneys, Douglas L. Applegate, left, and Joseph M. Preis in Irvine, Calif., on Aug. 16. A civilian jury in Riverside today acquitted a former Marine sergeant in the killing of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners in the battle for Fallouja in 2004. Despite hearing a tape-recorded phone call in which Jose Nazario appeared to admit to ordering the killings, jurors said prosecutors had not made the case against him. They also said they felt it wasn't right for them to judge...

Developing story...

Riverside, California--A jury of 12 civilians began deliberations Wednesday afternoon in the case of a former Marine infantry squad leader accused of killing four unarmed insurgents in Fallujah Iraq almost four years ago. Former Sgt. Jose L. Nazario faces federal charges of voluntary manslaughter, abetting murder, assault with a deadly weapon and unlawfully using his firearm. Assistant US Attorney Jerry Behnke took the first shots in closing arguments that began Wednesday morning. Before offering closing arguments, he offered the jury of nine women and three men a surreptitiously recorded telephone conversation between the former squad leader and Sgt. Jermaine Nelson,...

Riverside, California--After two years, countless thousands of dollars and the destruction of far too many reputations, the manslaughter trial of former Marine Corps Sergeant Jose L. Nazario is almost over. Tuesday afternoon at the close of business US District Judge Stephen Larson told the lawyers and spectators in the crowded court room in Riverside that the case against Nazario will go to the jury Thursday morning. From the sound of the things, the news didn’t reach the nine women and three men any too soon. They were already asking Larson when the trial would end, he said. Despite watching the...

Riverside, California--The first witness with personal knowledge of what allegedly happened at Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 is expected to testify today against his former squad leader in US District Court. Former Lance Corporal Corey Carlisle was a Mormon missionary working in Indiana last year when he told a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigator he heard and saw events that indicated several of his squad mates killed enemy prisoners in the opening hours of the battle. Carlisle told NCIS Special Agent Mark O Fox that his former squad leader Sgt. Jose L. Nazario, his fire team leader Cpl. Ryan Weemer, and...

Riverside, California--The heated atmosphere at the US District Court in Riverside grew even more contentious Friday morning when two Marine sergeants accused of murder by military authorities refused to testify in the manslaughter case of their former squad leader Jose Luis Nazario. The air was already charged with anticipation when sergeants Ryan Weemer and Jermaine Nelson, both 26, marched in ramrod straight to tell US District Judge Stephen Larson that they were refusing to obey his order to testify against their former squad leader. All three men are charged with participating in the execution of four enemy combatants their squad...

Riverside, California--There is a lot at stake in the utilitarian court room dominated by the Seal of the United States District Court for Central California at Riverside. This is where former Marine Corps Sergeant Jose Luis Nazario, 28, is on trial for allegedly killing enemy combatants his squad captured in the opening hours of the battle for Fallujah, Iraq almost four years ago. Two other Marines in the squad he led are charged with unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty by the Marine Corps. For the record, Nazario says it never happened. On trial with Nazario is almost 250 years...

Wednesday, August 20: Jury selection is complete in the Jose Nazario trial. Fifty-four jurors were pooled, twelve (and two alternates) were chosen. There are nine women and three men on the jury, most have military members in their family and some are veterans. Jose Nazario is happy with the jury selection and confident that justice will be served. Opening statements are scheduled for tomorrow. And so we begin....

What can we freepers do to help the marine being the first charged in a civil court of essentially 'war crimes'? Who is the PA and Judge that allows this farce? Where can I find petitions to sign. I have already called my congress critters.

IRVINE, Calif. - A former Marine sergeant facing the first federal civilian prosecution of a military member accused of a war crime says there is much more at stake than his claim of innocence on charges that he killed unarmed detainees in Fallujah, Iraq. In the view of Jose Luis Nazario Jr., U.S. troops may begin to question whether they will be prosecuted by civilians for doing what their military superiors taught them to do in battle...

Two Camp Pendleton Marines, ordered to testify against former sergeant Jose L. Nazario by the US District Judge presiding over his voluntary manslaughter trial, have decided to refuse the judge’s order. Kevin B. McDermott, the Orange County attorney representing Nazario, says he received the news this morning. “It shows the solidarity of these Marines,” McDermott says. Nazario is charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter for allegedly executing two captured enemy combatants, compelling his subordinates to assist him in killing two others, and unlawfully using a firearm--his M-16 rifle--in the commission of the crime. Weemer and Nelson face general court-martials...

Government prosecutors, who filed an application in US District Court for an order compelling two Marines co-defendants to testify against their former squad leader, revealed that one of them was a government informant. All three men are accused of executing four enemy combatants they captured in the opening hours of the month-long battle of Fallujah in November 2004. Documents filed in the US District Court for Central California August 11 on reveal that Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, a co-defendant in the case against former Marine Jose L. Nazario, tried to trick his former squad leader into admitting the incident occurred. Nazario,...

The Marine Corps is considering the unprecedented step of appointing a reserve lawyer to assist the US Attorney for Central California in prosecuting former Marine Sgt. Jose L. Nazario in US District Court in Riverside, California, Defend Our Marines has learned.A Marine Corps spokesman at Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D.C. confirmed Thursday that a request for an SJA to assist in the prosecution of Nazario was received at HQMC from the US Attorneys Office for Central California. Nazario was indicted by a federal Grand Jury last August 17 for allegedly executing two prisoners of war at Fallujah. In a...

Major Bill Donahue (USMC, retired) has a personal stake in the Third Battle of Fallujah. He lost a son in that city (a second son lost both legs a month later in Iraq). Now Donahue heads United American Patriots, a national non-profit 501(c) 3 organization and its Warrior Fund project. His mission is to ensure justice for soldiers and Marines accused of crimes arising out of combat in Iraq. Donahue speaks with passion about his cause. And he speaks with understandable pride about his successes. Donations from Warrior Fund were crucial to the recent exonerations of Sgt. Leonardo Treviño and...

Read the indictment here._____________________________________________A former Marine sergeant charged with killing captured enemy combatants in Fallujah, Iraq more than three years ago has taken another bullet from a California federal Grand Jury. The Grand Jury has handed up a superseding indictment charging Jose L. Nazario with the added charges of Assault with a Dangerous Weapon, Discharging a Firearm during a Crime of Violence, and Causing an Act – in this case multiple murder – by two junior Marines under his command, the undated indictment shows. The 28-year old former Riverside Police Department rookie and eight year Marine veteran is already charged...

(Published July 10, 2008) CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer hoped his battle experience in Fallujah and other Iraqi hot zones would pave the way to a job in the Secret Service. Instead, the 25-year-old is among three Marines charged with murdering unarmed captives in November 2004, during some of the heaviest house-to-house fighting of the Iraq war. ADVERTISEMENT Cracking the Code of Sexual Chemistry and Attraction Still Time to Slim Down for Summer More Scholarships for Working Moms Going Back to College Weemer is due in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Thursday for a daylong preliminary hearing, known...

April 21, 2008, Riverside, California--The defense team representing Marine infantryman Jose Luis Nazario asked a federal court judge Monday to dismiss voluntary manslaughter charges against their client for allegedly killing two Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq more than three years ago. At the time Nazario was a squad leader engaged in desperate house-to-house combat. The decorated Marine veteran was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines when the incident allegedly occurred. A year later four enlisted members of the same platoon would be charged with murder and other war crimes in the unrelated “Haditha Massacre” incident. Government...

(Fallujah burning in the distance on D-Day) Nine days before former Marine Corps Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario Jr. was charged with voluntary manslaughter at Fallujah, Iraq almost three years ago he was publicly disgraced by two Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents in the course of his arrest. The probationary patrolman on the Riverside Police Department was reportedly lured into his police station August 7 under false pretenses, stripped of his badge and gun, handcuffed by two Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents, and forced to take a humiliating “perp walk” past his fellow officers for allegedly killing two...

NORTH COUNTY ---- A former Camp Pendleton Marine accused of killing two insurgent detainees in Iraq in late 2004 should be reinstated as a Riverside police officer pending resolution of the case, the president of the Riverside Police Officers Association said Thursday. Jose Nazario was terminated from his job Aug. 7, eight days before he appeared in U.S. District Court in Riverside on a charge of voluntary manslaughter for the Fallujah killings. Nazario was in his probationary period when he was terminated; Riverside police officials gave no reason for the firing. His lawyers contend that the dismissal is tied directly...

CNN) -- A former Marine sergeant accused of killing two Iraqi captives in a 2004 battle in Iraq said his squad fabricated the entire story. Jose Luis Nazario has pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter charges brought by federal prosecutors in southern California. He left the service in 2005. According to an affidavit from a Navy investigator, Nazario killed one prisoner and then asked his squad: "Who else wants to kill these guys? Because I don't want to do it all myself." The prisoners -- four men who had been captured in a house that was the source of hostile...

NORTH COUNTY -- A former Marine who served with a group Camp Pendleton troops under investigation for the alleged slaying of Iraqi detainees in Fallujah nearly three years ago will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Riverside County today on a charge of voluntary manslaughter. Jose Nazario Jr., of Riverside is scheduled to appear for arraignment at 3 p.m.. A Riverside Police Department officer until he was fired last week, Nazario was a member of a Camp Pendleton squad being investigated for the killing of four detainees during a fight for Fallujah on Nov. 9, 2004. Nazario's attorney, Emery...

<p>August 14, 2007 -- Former Marine Corps Sergeant Jose Nazario may face charges of conspiracy to commit murder in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, California for killing eight Iraqi prisoners of war in Fallujah, Iraq in November 2004. Nazario was a probationary patrolman on the Los Angeles Police Department when the Naval Criminal Investigative Service informed his superiors the former infantryman was a suspect in the alleged murders. He was subsequently fired from his job.</p>