Marine Accused of Deserting During Gulf War : Military: Arrested in Stockton, Cpl. Darrell Lynn Spencer, a member of an extremist group, is being held in the Camp Pendleton brig.

A Marine corporal accused of failing to report to Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War and then deserting is being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton pending a court-martial, military officials confirmed Monday.

Cpl. Darrell Lynn Spencer, 23, who had been stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, was arrested in Stockton on Aug. 3 and may be charged as early as today, said Capt. Betsy Sweatt.

Sweatt said Marine Corps investigators will try to determine whether New Nation USA, an extremist organization to which Spencer allegedly belongs, constitutes a security threat for having played a role in his desertion.

“What I’ve come to find out is that this nation certainly is not operating as it was set up by our founding forefathers, and we don’t even operate under the Constitution of the United States anymore,” Spencer said in a tape-recorded statement released to the media Sunday night by his fiancee, Jill Gutierrez, 34, of Stockton.

“I am a citizen of New Nation USA, and I have expatriated myself from the corporate United States government,” Spencer’s statement said.

Lt. Frank Johnston of the Stockton Police Department said Spencer was arrested shortly after his agency received a call from the Marine Corps Desertion Office in Quantico, Va., which forwarded the warrant for his arrest.

Johnston said police had received complaints from Phillip Marsh, Gutierrez’s father, who “told us we were wrong” in arresting Spencer. Marsh, a member of New Nation USA, had recruited his prospective son-in-law for the group, he told police.

The group’s aim, according to its literature, is to denounce the U.S. government and all its activities, and to form its own government.

Richard Chandler Collins, who goes by the pen name S.A. Freeman, has been quoted in published accounts as the head of New Nation USA, which is based in Morongo Valley, west of Palm Springs.

Collins was unavailable for comment Monday.

Sweatt, the Marine Corps spokeswoman, said Spencer enlisted in the Marines in January, 1987, and served with Helicopter Training Squadron 302 at Tustin until Feb. 1, when he allegedly deserted.

Sweatt said that Spencer had been absent without leave since that time, which coincided with the deployment of his unit to Saudi Arabia.

Police Lt. Johnston said that, when officers approached Spencer at the home of his fiancee on East Fulton Street in Stockton, he denied that his name was Spencer but agreed to go to headquarters.

Johnston was unable to confirm published reports that Spencer’s father and stepmother turned him in to authorities.

Spencer appeared before a military magistrate Friday, when he was ordered held in pretrial confinement, pending a court-martial, Sweatt said.

“We’ll continue to hold him at Camp Pendleton, which is where all Marine prisoners in Southern California are held,” she said. “There is fear that he might be a risk for flight.”

Sweatt said that, in the past, death was the penalty for military desertion during wartime.

But, in this case, “death is not an option,” she said, adding that the court-martial will start 90 days after charges are brought.

Military officials said late Monday that the probable maximum penalty would be three years’ confinement, reduction in rank to private, loss of all pay and a dishonorable discharge.