Feds want sgt. detained for contempt — again - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Feds want sgt. detained for contempt — again

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Less than a month after a judge released him from federal custody, a Marine Iraq combat veteran is facing the possibility of another round of confinement because federal prosecutors are unsatisfied with his answers to a federal grand jury regarding his actions during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah.

Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, 26, is expected to appear before U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson in Riverside, Calif., an hour north of Camp Pendleton, on Tuesday, his attorney confirmed.

Federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Riverside will ask Larson that day to approve the government’s motion and hold Nelson again in contempt of court for failing to answer detailed questions about the alleged killings of detainees in Fallujah in a case involving his former squad leader.

The grand jury last summer indicted former Sgt. Jose L. Nazario, and the federal government then charged him with manslaughter in the deaths of several unknown males on Nov. 9, 2004, in Iraq.

Nelson last month had spent eight days in the federal detention center in Los Angeles after U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson on May 22 found him in contempt of court because the sergeant refused to meet with the grand jury. On May 29, Anderson ordered Nelson released with the condition that he meet with the grand jury and answer some questions in the Nazario case.

Nelson met with the grand jury as scheduled June 18 and answered some questions before he was allowed to leave and return to his military duties, his attorney, Joseph H. Low IV, told Marine Corps Times.

Nelson took his Fifth Amendment protection in declining to answer questions about the Fallujah killings.

Attorneys for Nazario say that federal prosecutors are trying to collect testimony from Nelson and another squad member, Sgt. Ryan Weemer, so the grand jury would issue a superseding indictment against Nazario on the more serious charges of murder and use of a weapon in the commission of a crime.

Weemer, like Nelson, held firm with refusing to meet with the grand jury again.

On Friday, Weemer spent his ninth day in a federal detention center in nearby San Bernardino, Calif., where Larson on June 12 had ordered the 25-year-old Marine held in contempt of court for his refusal.

Both Nelson and Weemer are facing murder and dereliction of duty charges filed by the Marine Corps. A military Article 32 preliminary investigation hearing for Weemer is scheduled to begin July 10 at Camp Pendleton.

Nazario’s federal trial is tentatively scheduled to start July 8 in Riverside.

The federal prosecution of Nazario, a former sergeant who already completed his enlistment with the Marine Corps, stems from the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.