A good friend of the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack gunman has agreed to plead guilty to providing material support to terrorists, to buying two firearms used in the deadly rampage, and to earlier conspiracies.
Enrique Marquez Jr., 25, entered into a plea agreement that was filed Tuesday, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Marquez is set to enter his guilty plea in court in downtown Los Angeles Thursday morning.
Marquez has agreed to plead guilty to to providing material support and resources to terrorists, including weapons, explosives and personnel.
He will also plead guilty to making false statements in connection to his having posed as a “straw buyer” for two assault rifles that Syed Rizwan Farook used in the killings at the Inland Regional Center. Farook paid Marquez for the rifles, according to the agreement.
The Dec. 2, 2015, attack left 14 dead and 22 injured. Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik were killed during a shootout with authorities several hours after the attack.
Marquez also admitted in the plea agreement that in 2011 and 2012 he planned with Farook to attack Riverside City College and commuter traffic on the 91 Freeway.
“This defendant collaborated with and purchased weapons for a man who carried out the devastating … terrorist attack that took the lives of 14 innocent people, wounded nearly two dozen, and impacted our entire nation,” said U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker in a statement. “While his earlier plans to attack a school and a freeway were not executed, the planning clearly laid the foundation for the 2015 attack on the Inland Regional Center.”
Marquez will face up to 25 years in federal prison. He has been in federal custody since his arrest in the weeks after the attack.
After Marquez enters his plea, he will be the fourth person convicted in connection with the terror attack, Decker said. The other three are connected to a sham marriage between Marquez and a Russian woman.
The shooter’s brother, Syed Raheel Farook, his wife Tatiana Farook, and her sister Mariya Chernykh all earlier this year entered guilty pleas on immigration fraud charges. They also admitted conspiring have Chernykh marry Marquez.
