8 Marines Plead Guilty in Thefts From Trains

Eight Marines pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing from interstate shipments on slow-moving Southern Pacific freight trains in the Colton area and were given one-year suspended sentences.

U.S. Magistrate George Martin in Yucca Valley also fined each of the defendants $1,000 for the four-month string of thefts. They reportedly followed the trains in pickup trucks and looted them at slow-downs or stops, taking television sets, radios and other items.

A public affairs spokesman at the Marine Corps Air-Combat Training Center at Twentynine Palms, where the eight noncommissioned officers have been stationed, said no decision had yet been made on their military futures as a consequence of the misdemeanor guilty pleas.

The case against a ninth suspect, Pfc. Brian Andrew Banks, 19, of West Palm Beach, Fla., was still pending. He could face more serious charges as the result of what Southern Pacific railroad detectives concluded was the inadvertent derailment of a train near Palm Springs last Aug. 23.

That accident, apparently resulting from the sabotage of a brake mechanism and the uncoupling of 36 freight cars in a robbery attempt, caused $3.5 million in damages and the death of one man who was believed to be aboard the train.

Those who entered the pleas to a charge of theft of interstate shipments Tuesday were identified by FBI spokesman Fred Reagan as Pfc. Scott Michael Billings, 19, of Scarborough, Me.; Pfc. Daniel Wade Clements, 19, of Euless, Tex.; Lance Cpl. Andrew Wayne Breau, 19, Frye, Me., and Pfc. Shawn Patrick Flynn, 18, Henrietta, N.Y.

Also pleading guilty to the same charge and sentenced were Lance Cpl. Regan Lopez Taylor, 19, of Disputanta, Va.; Pfc. Todd Armand Galeto, 19, Babylon, N.Y.; Pfc. Jose Cruz Noyola Jr., 19, Moses Lake, Wash., and Pfc. Charles Fulton Bryan III, 19, Merced, Calif.