Marine recruits testify on ‘dungeon’ abuse allegations

QUANTICO, Va. — Drill instructors at the Marine Corps recruit center at Parris Island, S.C., drank alcohol on the job and repeatedly ordered recruits to do illegal calisthenics in a decrepit building called “the dungeon,” recruits testified Thursday.

The allegation emerged as Staff Sgt. Antonio Burke, a Parris Island drill instructor, became the first Marine to face a hearing in a series of cases involving hazing and abuse allegations over the last couple of years. Burke is charged with cruelty and maltreatment, failure to obey a lawful general order and making a false official statement.

The alleged abuse came to light after Pvt. Raheel Sidiqqui, 20, died March 18 in a fall from a third-story landing while running away from a drill instructor who had hazed recruits, according to one of three investigations the service has carried out over the last year.

Burke is at the center of a case that emerged a few weeks after Sidiqqui’s death when a recruit’s family wrote an April 27 letter to the White House complaining about his actions as well as those of several other drill instructors.

Burke, an administrative specialist who joined the service in 2007, was the senior drill instructor until he and several of his colleagues were removed from authority in Kilo Company, Platoon 3044. Three others — Staff Sgt. Matthew Bacchus, Staff Sgt. Jose LucenaMartinez and Sgt. Riley Gress — face arraignment on related charges Friday, Marine officials said.

None of the drill instructors identified this week have combat experience. Bacchus and Lucena-Martinez joined the service in 2007 as an aircraft mechanic and food service specialist, respectively, while Gress enlisted in 2008 as a motor vehicle operator.

Recruits testified that Burke was seen drunk around recruits, regularly used gay slurs on them and ordered them to do his college homework.

Burke’s hearing was an Article 32 hearing, similar to a grand jury proceeding in a civilian court. Burke declined to testify on his own behalf.

In other cases, drill instructors were accused of putting recruits in an industrial-size clothes dryer and turning it on, including a Muslim recruit who was called a “terrorist.”

Marine officials have not identified the drill instructors in those cases, but have said that up to 20 Marines at Parris Island could face criminal or administrative discipline. About 500 drill instructors are assigned to Parris Island.

The Marine Corps launched the probe after Siddiqui, of Taylor, Mich., fell several stories in a barracks stairwell after an altercation with an unidentified drill instructor. His family has said it thinks he was hazed and does not accept the corps’ finding that he committed suicide.

The Marines facing charges this week at Quantico Marine Corps Base are not connected to Siddiqui’s death. The three other drill instructors are to be arraigned Friday.

One Marine recruit testified that he passed out several times during training in the spring of 2016, including one instance when recruits were forced to do pushups while holding rifles. He said he suffered from a heart condition that led to a medical discharge but that his passing out was more likely related to dehydration.