Gun buyer in California faces charge in old plot

Towards the end of 2005, Marquez visited a mosque in Corona, California, and began to spend more time next door at Farook’s home, praying and discussing an increasingly radical form of Islam. They made plans for 2012 attacks at Riverside Community College and on State Road 91 in Riverside but got cold feet after four unrelated men in the area were arrested in connection to a terrorism-related plot.

U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said, “While there now is no evidence that Mr. Marquez participated in the December 2 attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences”.

In this artist’s sketch, Enrique Marquez, centre, appears in federal court in Riverside, Calif., Thursday.

Marquez is a friend of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook who bought two of the guns – the AR-15 rifles – that Farook and his wife used in the attack on the Inland Regional Center. This inspired Marquez, who told clinicians that he didn’t normally drink, to finish nine bottles of beer. Reporter: In late 2011 and early 2012, farook got Marquez to buy these two assault rifles.

By 2007, Marquez converted and became a Muslim.

“In early 2011, Marquez continued to listen to additional lectures and materials by [al-Awlaki]”, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said, and later that year, Farook and Marquez pored over Inspire magazine, produced by al-Awlaki’s al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. That included buying guns.

The document describes a radicalization that took place under the noses of family, friends and neighbors, in which Farook allegedly transformed Marquez in a matter of years from a new convert to Islam to a would-be terrorist plotting a massacre at a community college and a “rush hour” pipe bomb and rifle attack on a Southern California freeway.

He said the men specifically planned to toss pipe bombs into crowds of students in the cafeteria from the second floor, a spot that would allow them to get out for another phase of the attack. “He did the San Bernardino shooting”, the documents say.

Mr Marquez told investigators he bought the weapons for Farook because he looked Caucasian while Farook looked Middle-Eastern.

“Marquez admitted to authorities that he would set up a position in the hills south of the freeway”-for long range shots-“as Farook would throw pipe bombs into the eastbound lanes to stop traffic”. He plans to meet privately with the family members of those who died in the jiahdi attack.

San Bernardino Supervising Deputy Coroner Randy Emon told The Associated Press that the bodies had been released, but said he was not authorized to say who claimed them or give any other information.

The purchases were unlawful, prosecutors allege, because Marquez signed legal documents saying the guns were for only the personal use of himself and his immediate family.

Right after the shooting, Marquez called his mother to say he was safe but that he wouldn’t be coming home, neighbor Lorena Aguirre said. Marquez married a Russian immigrant who paid him $200 a month in order to gain legal immigration status.

Enrique Marquez Jr. walked into a Riverside bar in 2014 and beamed as he made a big announcement: They were now looking at a married man.

Viviana Ramirez, a friend of Marquez, said he rarely spoke of his marriage or was joined by his wife in social settings.

Marquez faces an additional immigration charge for a sham marriage.

Marquez: The f***ing asshole used my gun in the shooting. In the call, he tells the operator he’d given a gun to suspect Farook for “storage”.