Ex-Marine Police Charged In Attack On Illegal Migrants -- 7 Indicted In 1994 Southern California Assault

SAN DIEGO - Seven former police officers in the Marine Corps - including four later hired by civilian law-enforcement agencies, have been indicted in a 1994 assault on three illegal migrants living in the bushes outside Camp Pendleton.

Five who allegedly participated in the attack were charged with civil-rights violations; two others were indicted for participating in an alleged cover-up that initially stymied an investigation by civilian police and the Naval Investigative Service.

All seven were enlisted personnel in their early 20s and assigned to a special SWAT-style squad within the military police.

John Patrick Wolf, 29; Shawn Davis Simonet, 24; Corey Paul Gautreaux, 27; Mark Adam Burton, 23; and Brian David Gadway, 25, were charged with violating the migrants' civil rights.

Gadway and Gautreaux pleaded guilty yesterday.

James Bennett Graham, 26, who was not present during the attack, warned his fellow Marines that they could go to the brig if they talked to investigators about the beating. He pleaded guilty yesterday to tampering with a witness. Charles Frederick Byrne, 28, was charged with being an accessory and providing a false alibi for the assailants.

"These guys were young. It was a small, tight-knit team, and these guys are trained to die for one another," said Knut Johnson, Graham's attorney.

According to the indictment, five of the MPs, while off-duty but wearing military garb, raided a migrant encampment late at night, dragging one man from his hut, pushing a woman down and beating a 55-year-old man into unconsciousness. U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin said the defendants had targeted the migrants because they felt they would not report the attack lest they be deported. No other motive was revealed.

The investigation reportedly was reopened this spring after one of the defendants, while applying for a civilian law-enforcement job on the East Coast, flunked a lie-detector test.

The four who had gotten jobs in law enforcement after leaving the Marine Corps either have been fired or are in the process of being fired. The agencies, all in California, are the San Diego Sheriff's Department, Carlsbad Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department and Escondido Police Department. Only one of the defendants is still on active duty.

Migrant-rights activists decried the long delay in bringing charges.

"Three years ago nobody in law enforcement cared enough to get to the bottom of this hate crime," said Roberto Martinez of the San Diego-based American Friends Service Committee.