Two Camp Pendleton Marines charged with killing a third Marine over stolen drug money were selling cocaine, marijuana, steroids and other substances on the base, investigators have said.
Lance Cpl. Christian Carney and Pfc. Alvin Lovely are charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Pfc. Stephen Serrano on May 13. Two days later, a jogger found Serrano facedown in a ditch in San Clemente with three gunshot wounds to his back and one to his face.
Carney and Lovely are being prosecuted in Orange County Superior Court on the murder charges because Serrano died outside the base, while the Marine Corps is handling the drug charges.
Both men also are charged with making a criminal threat, and Carney faces a charge of trying to dissuade a witness.
Carney and Lovely distributed Ecstasy, other illicit drugs and anabolic steroids to fellow Marines from October until their arrests in late May, according to a four-page indictment against Carney.
Kevin Barry McDermott, an attorney representing Carney, would not comment on the document last week.
In July, the Orange County District Attorney's Office released a statement in which prosecutors said Serrano and an unidentified Marine broke into Carney's room at Camp Pendleton on May 9 and stole drug money.
Four days afterward, another unidentified Marine told Carney that he had seen two men breaking into Carney's room, prosecutors said.
Later that day, Carney and Lovely allegedly met Serrano's accomplice and drove him from the base to a secluded location in San Clemente, prosecutors said. They put a gun to the Marine's head and threatened to shoot him if he didn't identify his conspirator in the burglary, prosecutors said.
The man identified Serrano, prosecutors said.
Carney and Lovely returned to Camp Pendleton and asked Serrano to meet them, prosecutors said. Then they drove Serrano to San Clemente and killed him, prosecutors said.
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
