Weapons supplier in Dec. 2 attack attempts to withdraw guilty plea

Enrique Marquez Jr., who supplied the weapons used in the San Bernardino terrorist attack that killed 14 people December 2, 2015 was thwarted in his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea which has him serving 20 years in federal prison.

A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals denied Marquez’s legal motion to withdraw his guilty plea to charges that he supplied the weapons used in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack and lied on the document he signed when purchasing the firearms.

In the ruling the court held that that the plea agreement Marquez signed doesn’t allow him to pull the guilty plea unless he was forced to make the guilty plea.  The legal kerfuffle stems from a claim by Marquez legal counsel, John N. Aquilina, a year after the fact that that Marquez was suffering from depression and a feeling of hopelessness at the time and that combined with a sense of sorrow for the families of the victims was why he plead guilty.

Prosecutors opposing the plea withdrawal held that in opposing the claim that he was coerced or otherwise unfit to make the plea that Judge Jesus G. Bernal found that Marquez was doing so willingly when he made the plea in court in 2017.

Marquez bought the weapons in 2011 and 2012, and signed federal firearms purchase documents on which he swore he was purchasing them for himself.  The prosecution argued successfully in the case that Marquez was in fact buying them for terrorist and mass- murderer Syed Rizwan Farook.

The terrorist couple, Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik, were killed by police hours after the horrific attack that left so many dead, wounded and grieving in the San Bernardino community and beyond.