Neighbor Who Purchased San Bernardino Attack Guns to Plead Guilty

The U.S. Justice Department says it has reached a plea agreement with the man who purchased two of the guns used in the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. 

Under terms of the deal, Enrique Marquez is due to plead guilty Thursday to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and making false statements in connection with acquiring a firearm. 

He faces a statutory maximum of 25 years in federal prison, but his sentence is up to a judge to decide.  The plea agreement includes a section saying the U.S. Attorney’s Office will recommend a slight reduction from what is stipulated in sentencing guidelines. 

The agreement details the relationship between Marquez and Syed Rizwan Farook, who, along with his wife Tashfeen Malik, attacked Farook’s workplace.  The husband and wife then fled the Inland Regional Center and hours later were killed in a shootout with police. 

Marquez met Farook in 2005 when he moved into a house next door.  As late as 2012, according to the Justice Department, the pair planned their own attacks that never materialized, one at a community college where they were each once enrolled and another on drivers on a highway. 

The plan for the community college attack included throwing pipe bombs into a cafeteria, then escaping to attack another site on the campus. 

The highway assault plan was to thrown bombs onto the road, then to shoot drivers who were forced to stop their cars. 

Marquez told federal investigators that he broke off ties at the end of 2012 and had no knowledge of the 2015 attack in San Bernardino before it happened. 

But in the year before Marquez said he stopped associating with Farook, he took money from Farook and used it to buy the two guns later tied to the San Bernardino killings.  The plea agreement cites a violation of federal law based on the paperwork Marquez signed at the time of the purchase, certifying that he was not buying them on behalf of someone else.
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