10 Pendleton Marines Posed Nude, Probe Finds

The Marine Corps, concluding an investigation into an alleged gay pornography ring at Camp Pendleton, said Thursday it found that 10 enlisted Marines had posed nude but none engaged in homosexual acts.

Investigators said that nine men and one woman posed for Luciano Ceballos, an ex-convict who bragged to reporters in August that he had recruited more than 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton for his mail-order pornography business in the last three years.

Soon after the Marine Corps began its investigation, Ceballos was arrested on a charge of violating his parole on a forgery conviction. He remains in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, awaiting possible deportation to Mexico.

Of those linked to Ceballos, eight men were shown masturbating and a man and woman were shown in an unspecified sexual act, Marine Corps investigators said.

Information about the 10, including pictures and videotapes, will be turned over to their commanders for possible punishment that could range from loss of privileges to discharge. Posing nude, while not against civilian law, is against military law for active-duty personnel.

Although investigators found numerous pictures of nude men kept in a photo album by Ceballos, there was no indication that he mass-produced the pictures for distribution, investigators said.

Soon after Ceballos made his claims, the Marine Corps suggested that Ceballos’ statements about widespread involvement by Marines were false.

“We are still the few and the proud, and I hope something that was alleged but not proven does not tarnish the great reputation we have,” said Camp Pendleton spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Kelley Ramsey.