His public defender declined comment.
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Court documents show that Marquez had also planned other mass atrocities with Farook, such as an attack on a local college and a major highway, but neither was ever carried out. It never went off, but a remote control detonator was found in their auto after they were killed in a shootout with police.
“While there now is no evidence that Mr. Marquez participated in the December 2, 2015, (San Bernardino) attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences”, Decker continued in the statement.
According to the criminal complaint, Marquez met Farook around 2004 when he moved to Riverside.
The affidavit said Marquez told investigators he and Farook learned to make improvised explosive devices from Inspire Magazine, the official publication of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Marquez: Yeah. And then he [unintelligible]. He is placed in a psychiatric ward.
Marquez has also told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he and Farook talked about mounting some kind of attack in 2012, according to senior USA law enforcement officials. He returned a short time later with his wife, both of them heavily armed and with a multiple-pipe pipe bomb.
In August 2011, Farook told Marquez of his interest in joining al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen.
On Nov. 14, 2011, Marquez purchased a $660 Smith & Wesson rifle. He said he agreed to buy them because “Farook looked Middle Eastern”. “Straw purchasers” break the law by fraudulently filling out a form that says they’re the actual buyer, [when] they’re actually buying the gun for another person – someone who might be avoiding a background check.
In the past several days US authorities have been preparing federal firearms charges against Marquez and perhaps state charges as well, a USA government source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
They grew apart but remained in contact and in November 2014 Marquez entered into a sham marriage with the Russian woman, for which he was paid $200 a month, authorities say.
“This wasn’t a conversation with an average Joe”, Estrada said.
Marquez is literally the boy next door in this unfolding narrative: He lived for many years with his family in a one-story beige house directly next to Farook. His wife and the wife of Farook’s older brother are sisters. Marquez was Farook’s next-door neighbor and longtime friend who converted to Islam and was radicalized by Farook, federal prosecutors said. The following year, Farook would marry his accomplice in the San Bernardino shootings, Malik. “My world is upside-down”.
Marquez’s friends were shocked to learn he was linked to the attack by the weapons and described him as a friendly, easygoing guy who was not religious and rarely discussed his family or marriage. “We still want to know where they were for four hours [after the attack] and what else were they planning to do, and was there anybody who helped them or assisted them in some way”.
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Marquez, who had been working as a security guard at Wal-Mart, was known for his shy and mild-manned demeanor.
