Marine sentenced to 10 years for abusing recruits

A Marine Corps drill instructor has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars after being convicted of tormenting and abusing young recruits, especially Muslim-Americans, including one who later killed himself.

A military jury also ordered Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, a 34-year-old Iraq veteran, to forfeit all pay, be demoted to private and given a dishonorable discharge.

Friday’s sentencing at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, came after Felix begged for forgiveness before the eight-member jury, which a day earlier convicted him of abusing more than a dozen trainees at the Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.

Felix was convicted of dozens of criminal violations as the jury on Thursday found he taunted three Muslim recruits as “terrorists” or “ISIS” and ordered two of them to climb into an industrial clothes dryer, spinning one of them around in the scorching machine until he renounced his faith.

The Associated Press U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph A. Felix, with his wife and his lawyers Oct. 31 at Camp Lejeune, N.C., was convicted Friday of tormenting recruits.