A Marine who deserted his unit in 2013 and wound up in a Mexican jail for four months after a failed hijacking and armed assault will not get a reprieve on his sentence, an appeals court ruled last month.
Marine Lance Cpl. Ethan Foote, 21, was sentenced last March to a year behind bars, demotion to private, and a dishonorable discharge for attempted robbery, desertion and aggravated assault. The ruling from the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals that denies his appeal on the verdict also reveals, for the first time, the wild details of Foote's run from justice.
A combat engineer attached to Marine Wing Support Squadron 373, with attached to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing out of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, Foote left his unit on June 20, 2013, according to the document. The trouble began had begun a week or so prior, Foote told Marine Corps Times said in an interview, when he offered to house put up a Marine in unauthorized absence status at his off-base apartment in San Diego.
Foote said was he had been told the Marine was taking leave. But it became clear that wasn't the case when the Marine started posting pictures of himself holding one of Foote's handguns to his head, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service brought Foote in for questioning.
Fearing that he would face criminal charges, Foote said he made the decision to flee to Mexico.
"I didn't really plan that far, I guess," he said. "Once I got down there, I just wanted to stay off the grid for awhile, figure out what to do. In all actuality, I was planning to turn myself in eventually."
He wrote simple goodbye notes to family members and Marines in his unit, discarded his military ID, and drove his 2010 Volkswagen Golf to Tijuana. The border city is about 40 minutes from Miramar.
While Foote would tell Mexican authorities his ultimate destination was Cancun, he told Marine Corps Times he actually hadn't planned that far ahead. He only knew he needed to discard his vehicle, which was too easily traceable.
"I pulled over and I chucked the keys [to the Golf] to a taco stand owner in Tijuana," Foote said. "He spoke Spanish; I don't know what he said."
That night, he walked some 30 miles to Tecate in search of a vehicle that could take him deeper into Mexico.
"He decided upon stealing a vehicle and attempted to force a man from his car by brandishing a pocket knife at him," the appeals decision reads. "When the man resisted, the appellant stabbed him repeatedly in the neck."
Pvt. Ethan Foote was apprehended in Tecate, Mexico, in 2013 after he stabbed a man. He fled to the border town to avoid disciplinary action from the Marine Corps.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Foote said he had resorted to carjacking after failed attempts to steal and hotwire an unoccupied car. When he realized he needed to obtain a vehicle that was already running, he approached a Mexican driver, Victor Manuel Lopez Exiga, who was pulled into a store's parking lot. He brandished a pocket knife, but Exiga fought back, grabbing his wrist, Foote said.
They struggled, and Foote stabbed Exiga five times in the side of the neck.
According to the appeal, Exiga survived, though his injuries required stitches. He was treated and released from the hospital later that night.
"I didn't want to kill him," said Foote, who added he had never struck someone before. "It was more like I panicked because he fought back, so I just clicked off for a second. It's not self defense at that point, in no way am I saying that, but the [military] training just kind of kicked in."
Out of ideas, the Marine Foote fled on foot. Mexican police were quickly in hot pursuit. They found him some seven blocks away, where he had stopped to ask a local man where he could get water to drink. The police handcuffed and booked him. Hampered by his inability to understand Spanish, Foote said he gave the cops one piece of information that would haunt him. He told them his destination was Cancun, the only Mexican city he could think of on the spot. Because of that, he said, his fellow inmates called him "Spring Break" during his jail stay.
Foote's appeal, which asks the Marine Corps to upgrade his dishonorable discharge, cites "deplorable" conditions he endured for nearly four months in Mexican jails. He was first placed in a municipal jail in Tecate, then later moved to La Mesa prison in Tijuana.
"It is not unusual for there to be up to 24 inmates in a cell meant to house nine," Foote said of La Mesa in his appeal. "As there are only six to nine beds in a cell, the other prisoners must sleep on the floor. Bedding is not provided to prisoners ... bed bugs are a continuous problem in the prison."
Foote said he got two meals a day of weak soup and rice as he waited for his charges to be adjudicated. He had been charged by Mexican authorities charged him with aggravated attempted carjacking, and he pleaded guilty. He was ultimately offered a choice: three years in prison, according to the appeal, or a $21,000 peso fine, equal to about $1,600, with required monthly parole check-ins. He paid and arranged for Marine Corps authorities with his unit to meet him there in Tijuana.
Freed from the Mexican prison, he was promptly arrested by military police officers and taken to Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar, where he would remain in pretrial confinement for another five months.
In March 2014, he took a plea deal that limited his time behind bars to 12 months, and went straight back to the Miramar brig to finish his sentence.
Foote's hardships in Mexico were the basis of his appeal that his discharge was inappropriately severe.
It's an argument the court didn't buy.
"Based on our individualized consideration of the appellant and the circumstances of his offenses — including his time in a Mexican jail for the same misconduct forming the basis for two of the three charges here — we are satisfied that a dishonorable discharge is not inappropriately severe," wrote a panel of three military judges in a per curiam decision published Dec. 23.
Foote's military attorney, Navy Capt. Bree Ermentrout, said through a public affairs officer that she and Foote are reviewing the decision and evaluating options.
Foote, now a private and on appellate leave at his hometown in East Glacier Park, Montana, said he was trying to put his life back together as he awaited his discharge.
A bitter moment for Foote came, he said, when NCIS investigators tracked down Exiga, the man he stabbed in Mexico.
Saying he was a good Christian man, Exiga said he had forgiven Foote for what he did and prayed for God to help him. The right place for Foote, Exiga said, was not a prison, but somewhere that he could receive mental and emotional help.
"It hurt when I first heard it," Foote said. "I had never heard him talk. He was like the nicest person in the world."
Since Foote reached the end of his 12-month sentence in October, he has held temporary carpentry and bartending jobs. He's aware his dishonorable discharge and felony convictions will limit his options for the rest of his life and said he is still grappling with what that means to him.
He recently began has begun pursuing woodworking, a skill he picked up in the Marine Corps where he was often called on to design frames and plaques. He now showcases his creations at a newly opened store, Dirtbag Woodworking Co., on the crafting website Etsy.
Foote draws few conclusions about his surreal run from the law. Looking back, he said, he would have benefited from a confidante in the Marine Corps who could help him think clearly. To other Marines who find themselves in dire straits, he said to seek good advice.
"I guess just try to find somebody that you can actually talk to that you can trust in your unit," he said. "You've got to smile on the inside and grit your teeth and keep going sometimes."
