Gun buyer in California attack pleads not guilty

“We just don’t know”, David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said.

The only person charged in the San Bernardino terror massacre pled not guilty to gun, immigration and terrorism-related charges during his arraignment on Wednesday. Family of Enrique Marquez unaware of marriage, conversion to IslamThe 24-year-old is accused of conspiring with Syed Farook to provide material support to terrorists.

Shortly before 11 a.m. on December 2, Farook, an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, both of Redlands, stormed the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino and opened fire on a crowd of about 70 people, majority employees of San Bernardino County’s Environmental Health Services division, where Farook also worked. Farook, the U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, a Pakistani native he married in Saudi Arabia in 2014, died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

“The covert nature of the defendant’s alleged actions is a stark reminder of the challenges we face in preventing attacks planned in the name of violent jihad and underscores the critical need for those with knowledge about terror plots to come forward”, he said. “It’s important because we want to ensure that we know whether or not they stopped at any locations, any residences, any businesses that we don’t already know about”.

According to the criminal complaint, Marquez bought a Smith & Wesson rifle in November 2011 for around $740 and then purchased another rifle for about $760 three months later. Authorities believe Farook and Malik used the weapons Marquez acquired to carry out an attack that left 14 dead and 22 wounded.

He urged people to call if they have any information, whether it’s photographic or other electronic evidence, that will tell the exact locations of the suspects during the timeline gap. But he is accused of plotting with Farook in 2011 and 2012 to carry out attacks at Riverside City College and on the 91 Freeway. Marquez told the Federal Bureau of Investigation he was being paid $200 a month for the marriage, the affidavit says.

Several pipe bombs were used in the San Bernardino attack.

Farook and Marquez started planning out terrorist attacks in Southern California, although they never fell through with their plans.