CA shooter’s friend appears in federal court

Federal prosecutors charged Marquez Thursday in plotting with Farook in 2011 and 2012 to commit terrorist crimes and unlawfully buying two assault rifles used in the mass shooting carried out by Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik at the Inland Regional Center, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Marquez, who had met Farook when they were neighbors in Riverside, California, is facing charges for making false statements in the acquisition of firearms, marriage fraud, and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

But the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in 2011 and 2012, Farook and Marquez planned attacks that were not carried out.

The new information came to light as it was also revealed that Marquez wondered less than a month before the San Bernardino attack when the multiple lives he was leading would come crashing down.

Last year, Marquez married the sister of Raheel Farook’s wife.

Marquez, 24, was charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists in the deadly plots detailed above.

Authorities previously said Marquez had legally purchased the guns Farook and Malik used. And they had daydreamed about launching attacks against the Riverside Community College and also firing into rush-hour traffic on the 91 freeway in Riverside.

According to the criminal complaint, Mr Marquez called emergency services hours after the San Bernardino shooting and told the dispatcher that the attackers “used my gun”.

Then, Marquez and Farook began planning attacks in Southern California.

Investigators said Marquez bought weapons for Farook – a sport rifle in November 2012 and an A-15 rifle in February 2012. He tells the operator he’d given a gun to suspect Farook for “storage”.

So, is the FBI’s assertion that it knew nothing about Farook before the San Bernardino shooting just a case of reflexive institutional self-protection?

By 2011, Farook and Marquez were spending most of their time at Farook’s home, reading, listening to lectures and watching videos “involving radical Islamic content”, investigators say. 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.

Marquez: I couldn’t have it at home because I have brothers and then I got moved and then I can’t have it around [unintelligible].

He was allegedly praised on Twitter by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers who, along with his brother, killed three people at the race in 2013 and injured more than 260 others.

Or is this another attempt to keep from the public the likelihood that, in the tangled web of the FBI’s counterterrorism effort – the tens of thousands of paid informants, provocateurs, agents, and possibly even double agents – things sometimes go terribly, tragically wrong?

Marquez was charged with illegally purchasing the rifles that the shooters used in the slaughter and were found with hours later after dying in a gun battle with police. They paint a vivid picture of Mr. Farook’s efforts to radicalize Mr. Marquez, urging him to listen to speeches by a Qaeda leader and read a magazine published by a Qaeda affiliate that provided bomb-building instructions.

Marquez called 911 December 3, saying, “My neighbor”. Marquez also said he no longer wanted Farook as a friend.

“I still can’t believe this is going on”, said Viviana Ramirez, who met Marquez through an online forum when they studied at Riverside Community College.