Marine Corps to prosecute Las Maracas shooting suspects

The Marine Corps has taken over prosecution of three Marines accused of shooting three patrons at a local nightclub last month.

“This is happening more and more, and in a case where it is Marine on Marine violence, I welcome it,” said Dewey Hudson, district attorney for the Fourth Prosecutorial District that includes Onslow County.

Lance Cpl. Robert James Goense, 19, of Union, N.J.; Lance Cpl. Erwin Rodriguez Jr., 21, of Arlington, Va.; and Sgt. Michael Haridat, 28, of Bronx, N.Y., were each charged by the Jacksonville Police Department with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

They are accused of shooting 27-year-old Marine Staff Sgt. Enation Roney, 27-year-old Jonni Aidoo and 29-year-old Christian Onate, respectively. Aidoo and Onate are not Marines.

All three suspects are riflemen attached to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, said Master Sgt. Keith A. Milks, a spokesman for II Marine Expeditionary Force.

Milks confirmed the Corps’ decision to prosecute the three suspects.

Hudson said in the past the Marine Corps prosecuted mainly driving while impaired cases that occurred in town, but in the last few years the Corps’ purview has expanded to include felony assault cases.

“A lot of times, in many cases, the Marine Corps has more severe punishments than the state,” he said.

An official reason for the Corps taking over the case was not immediately available, but the three suspects have past troubles within the Marine Corps, according to a source aboard Camp Lejeune who is familiar with the case but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Goense, Rodriguez and Haridat bonded out of the Onslow County Jail within a week of their arrests and were placed in the Camp Lejeune Brig. It was not clear whether they were still in the brig Monday.

Their arrest came after Jacksonville police responded to a call in the parking lot of Las Maracas on Lejeune Boulevard at 3:30 a.m. Jan. 3 and found three men who had been shot. Aidoo and Onate were treated and released. Roney, assigned to New River Air Station, was released from Pitt County Memorial Hospital after a stay in intensive care there.

The triple shooting was the result of a fight that was broken up inside Las Maracas. When Aidoo, Onate and Roney, who were involved in the fight, went outside they were shot.

Haridat was arrested shortly after the shooting on drug counts and remained in jail until he was charged in Onate’s shooting on Jan. 6. Rodriguez was arrested and charged in Aidoo’s shooting on Jan. 7. Goense was arrested and charged in Roney’s shooting on Jan. 8.

Las Maracas manager Will Gaston said the shooting was not indicative of his business, which has been open since mid-October with no problems, Jacksonville police confirmed.

“This was a random thing that could have happened anywhere,” Gaston said. “I never saw the suspects before.”

Contact Lindell Kay at 910-219-8456. Read his blog at http://onslowcrime.encblogs.com.