Sgt. Jose Nazario ready to get on with life after being acquitted

SEAN DUFRENE / Associated Press
"I just wanted the trial to be over. I feel like a new man now," former Marine Jose Nazario said.

Nazario acquitted in detainee deaths
By Steve Liewer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 30, 2008

Jose Nazario's days as a househusband appear to be numbered.

The former Marine said he has been jobless and unemployable since Aug. 7, 2007, the day authorities arrested him on charges of voluntary manslaughter and assault. He was accused of participating in the killings of four detainees during one of the Iraq war's ugliest battles.

The agents snapped handcuffs on Nazario's wrists in the sergeants' room at the Riverside Police Department, where he had worked for more than six months as a probationary officer. Released on bond, Nazario has cared for his son, Gabriel, now 2, at the family home in upstate New York while they got by on his wife's small paycheck and the kindness of relatives.

“At one time in your life, you're a war hero and a breadwinner,” said Nazario, 28, who left the Marine Corps as a staff sergeant in 2005. “The next day, you're facing felony charges and you're unemployed. It's devastating.”

On Thursday, a jury of nine women and three men – only one of whom had served in the military – pronounced the verdict Nazario and his family had prayed they would hear: “Not guilty.”

“I just wanted the trial to be over,” Nazario said yesterday. “I feel like a new man now.”

After the trial, some of the jurors told Nazario and his family the same thing.
“I don't think we had any business doing that,” said juror Nicole Peters, who wiped away tears during the reading of the verdict and later hugged Nazario. “I thought it was unfair to us and to him.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20080830-9999-1m30fallujah.html