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Judge frees two Marines from federal lockup

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A federal judge on Thursday released two sergeants who he jailed for contempt of court after they refused to provide detailed questions to a federal grand jury in a related manslaughter case involving alleged detainees killed during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah in Iraq.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Larson ruled that the two Marines — Sgt. Jermaine Nelson and Sgt. Ryan Weemer — would be released from custody, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office with California’s central district in Los Angeles.

The two Marines were being held in the federal lockup at the San Bernardino detention center. Larson, in separate earlier decisions, had found each Marine in contempt of court after they had refused to testify about what happened inside a house in Fallujah during which several unidentified, unknown men were shot and killed.

A federal grand jury in Riverside last summer indicted their former infantry squad leader, former Sgt. Jose L. Nazario, for manslaughter, and defense attorneys said they believed that federal prosecutors were seeking a superseding indictment on murder charges. Nazario has pleaded not guilty, and his trial in federal court in Riverside is scheduled for mid-August.

Nelson, in late May, had spent eight days in the federal lockup in Los Angeles after his first refusal to meet with a grand jury. The judge, on June 24, again implored him to reconsider his refusal and ordered the sergeant back into federal custody in San Bernardino.

Two weeks earlier, on June 12, Larson held Weemer, 25, in contempt of court and ordered him detained.

During the latest hearing, Nelson’s attorney, Joseph Low, asked the judge to reconsider his detention of the two Marines, both veterans of combat tours in Iraq.

“I knew that Sergeant Nelson was never going to testify. I’m just glad that we didn’t have to take four, six or 18 months to know that,” Low, an attorney from Long Beach, Calif., and a former Marine, said Thursday as he and the two sergeants enjoyed a late lunch away from the federal court.

Larson approved Low’s motion that both Marines be released. But he did not withdraw his contempt rulings. He simply noted that any further detention would not coerce either sergeant into testifying, said Christopher Johnson, a federal defender representing Weemer.

The judge considered holding the Marines under some sort of house arrest, but Marine Corps officials did not agree to place the sergeants in any pretrial confinement in the brig at Camp Pendleton. Still, said Johnson, a former Navy judge advocate, it’s “a big win.”

But the legal battles haven’t ended for the sergeants.

The Marine Corps has charged each of them with murder and dereliction of duty for their alleged actions in that Fallujah house. Nelson, Weemer and Nazario were members of an infantry platoon with the Camp Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, at the time. Nazario left the Corps in 2005.

Weemer is expected to be at Camp Pendleton on July 10 for an Article 32 investigation hearing on the military charges. Nelson is scheduled for a pretrial session July 14.