7 Former Marine MPs Indicted in ’94 Attack on Illegal Immigrants

SAN DIEGO — Seven former military police officers in the Marine Corps--including four later hired by civilian law enforcement agencies--have been indicted in a 1994 assault on three illegal immigrants living in the bushes outside Camp Pendleton, officials announced Friday.

Of the seven, three have pleaded guilty. All seven were enlisted personnel in their early 20s and assigned to a special SWAT-style squad within the military police.

According to the indictment, unsealed Friday, five of the MPs, while off duty but wearing military garb, raided a migrant encampment late one night, dragging one man from his hut, pushing a woman down and beating a 55-year-old man unconscious.

The five who allegedly took part in the attack were charged with civil rights violations, and two were indicted on charges of participating in a reputed cover-up that initially stymied an investigation by civilian police and the Naval Investigative Service. Of the guilty pleas, two were to civil rights violations and one to witness tampering.

U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin said the attackers targeted the immigrants in the belief that they would not report the assault lest they be deported. “This was a victimization of the vulnerable,” he said.

The investigation was reportedly reopened this spring after one defendant, while applying for a civilian law enforcement job in the East, failed a polygraph test used during the screening process.

The four who had gotten jobs in law enforcement after leaving the Marines have either been fired or are in the processing of being fired because of the case. The agencies that hired them are the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the Carlsbad, Escondido and Los Angeles police departments.

Although only one of the defendants is still on active duty, the Marine Corps was part of the FBI probe that led to the indictment.

“The Marine Corps condemns this kind of behavior,” said Marine spokesman Maj. Tom Peery.

An immigrant rights activist decried the long delay in bringing charges. “Three years ago nobody in law enforcement cared enough to get to the bottom of this hate crime,” said Roberto Martinez of the American Friends Service Committee.

Bersin denied this, saying investigators in 1994 “ran up against a stone wall of silence and deceit.”