Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 17, 2008
Pg. B1
By Jim Dwyer
The door to the doughnut shop swung open. For a moment, the tall young man, every bit a soldier in his bearing, stood with the windy rain of Friday afternoon at his back. A wave of coffee and doughnut humidity slapped him in the face.
His eyes swept across the shop. Then he spotted the older man seated at a table over a cup of decaf. Their eyes locked. The prodigal son had come home. The father rose. They hugged, with lots of thumping on the back instead of words.
Nearly two years ago, Jonathan Aponte left the Bronx for Iraq, a private with the First Cavalry of the United States Army.
And on Friday, he was, at long last, home for keeps — but not from the war. He was just back from an eight-month stay on Rikers Island.
Mr. Aponte went to jail because he arranged to get himself shot in the leg on a Bronx street corner in a staged robbery, hoping for an injury that would be just bad enough to keep him from going back to Iraq. That part worked. But it was just one act in a Bronx soap opera that in many respects seemed to be a scaled-down version of the delusional ambitions of the Iraq war itself.
Home on leave for 10 days last year, Mr. Aponte entered into a marriage of extremely short duration with a young woman. The new bride either volunteered or was assigned to hire a gunman to shoot her new husband, carefully. She negotiated via text messages. Right after Mr. Aponte arrived in the hospital with his wounded leg and flimsy yarn about a mysterious assailant, the scheme collapsed, followed immediately by the marriage.
On Friday, in a doughnut shop on West Burnside in the Bronx, he retraced his steps.
In the late winter of 2004, Mr. Aponte was hanging around outside a friend’s store on Westchester Square in the Bronx. “This guy in uniform came up to me and said, ‘You look like you’re in decent shape,’ ” Mr. Aponte said. “I told him, ‘Yeah, I do my pushups now and then.’ He said, ‘You ought to think about the military.’ ”
Mr. Aponte had not finished high school but he had earned a general equivalency diploma, and he worked occasionally in a barbershop. His father, William Aponte, who owns pharmacies in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, said Jonathan was at loose ends.
To the son, the Army benefits and bonuses sounded great. “That was the part they emphasized, and I thought, college for free, that’s what I want,” he said. He signed up immediately after his 18th birthday, and in September 2006 was sent to Iraq. His job was supply clerk, but he said he also pulled guard duty, and drove along booby-trapped streets.
In July 2007, he came home on a short leave, and connected with Alexandra Gonzalez, a relative of a friend. They married. “We knew nothing about it,” said William Aponte. “They hadn’t been involved before.”
The night before he was due to go back to Iraq for five more months, he and Ms. Gonzalez talked about ways to avoid it. “I jokingly said to her that I should get shot in the leg so that it can buy me some extra time away from Iraq,” Mr. Aponte told the police, records show. “She then mentioned to me that she knew someone named Felix that might be able to do something like that.”
Ms. Gonzalez told the story a little differently, the police said. “Jonathan had been asking my cousin and her man if they knew anyone who would shoot him for $500,” she said. “They all said no. I felt sorry for him. I called a few of my friends.”
An acquaintance, Felix Padilla, was willing to take on the job, Ms. Gonzalez told the police. They drove to East Gun Hill Road. “I smoked a cigarette and kept my eyes closed because I did not want to see it coming,” Mr. Aponte told the police.
Mr. Aponte escaped indictment by telling the grand jury of the horrors that he said he had witnessed in Iraq. Because no kind deed — especially a bullet to the leg — goes unpunished, Ms. Gonzalez and Mr. Padilla were indicted on charges of felony assault. They are awaiting trial.
After Mr. Aponte’s success with the grand jury, prosecutors said they learned that he really hadn’t seen all that much gore. To avoid a charge of felony perjury, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and was sent to jail.
For now, Mr. Aponte appears to be one of the very few people in America — if not the only one — to go to jail for lying about the Iraq war, a conflict nurtured in the deceptions and errors of people in positions of great responsibility. Mr. Aponte, for his part, marked his 21st birthday at Rikers Island in January.
He had learned one big lesson, he said: “Don’t shoot yourself.”
May 17, 2008
Pg. B1
By Jim Dwyer
The door to the doughnut shop swung open. For a moment, the tall young man, every bit a soldier in his bearing, stood with the windy rain of Friday afternoon at his back. A wave of coffee and doughnut humidity slapped him in the face.
His eyes swept across the shop. Then he spotted the older man seated at a table over a cup of decaf. Their eyes locked. The prodigal son had come home. The father rose. They hugged, with lots of thumping on the back instead of words.
Nearly two years ago, Jonathan Aponte left the Bronx for Iraq, a private with the First Cavalry of the United States Army.
And on Friday, he was, at long last, home for keeps — but not from the war. He was just back from an eight-month stay on Rikers Island.
Mr. Aponte went to jail because he arranged to get himself shot in the leg on a Bronx street corner in a staged robbery, hoping for an injury that would be just bad enough to keep him from going back to Iraq. That part worked. But it was just one act in a Bronx soap opera that in many respects seemed to be a scaled-down version of the delusional ambitions of the Iraq war itself.
Home on leave for 10 days last year, Mr. Aponte entered into a marriage of extremely short duration with a young woman. The new bride either volunteered or was assigned to hire a gunman to shoot her new husband, carefully. She negotiated via text messages. Right after Mr. Aponte arrived in the hospital with his wounded leg and flimsy yarn about a mysterious assailant, the scheme collapsed, followed immediately by the marriage.
On Friday, in a doughnut shop on West Burnside in the Bronx, he retraced his steps.
In the late winter of 2004, Mr. Aponte was hanging around outside a friend’s store on Westchester Square in the Bronx. “This guy in uniform came up to me and said, ‘You look like you’re in decent shape,’ ” Mr. Aponte said. “I told him, ‘Yeah, I do my pushups now and then.’ He said, ‘You ought to think about the military.’ ”
Mr. Aponte had not finished high school but he had earned a general equivalency diploma, and he worked occasionally in a barbershop. His father, William Aponte, who owns pharmacies in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, said Jonathan was at loose ends.
To the son, the Army benefits and bonuses sounded great. “That was the part they emphasized, and I thought, college for free, that’s what I want,” he said. He signed up immediately after his 18th birthday, and in September 2006 was sent to Iraq. His job was supply clerk, but he said he also pulled guard duty, and drove along booby-trapped streets.
In July 2007, he came home on a short leave, and connected with Alexandra Gonzalez, a relative of a friend. They married. “We knew nothing about it,” said William Aponte. “They hadn’t been involved before.”
The night before he was due to go back to Iraq for five more months, he and Ms. Gonzalez talked about ways to avoid it. “I jokingly said to her that I should get shot in the leg so that it can buy me some extra time away from Iraq,” Mr. Aponte told the police, records show. “She then mentioned to me that she knew someone named Felix that might be able to do something like that.”
Ms. Gonzalez told the story a little differently, the police said. “Jonathan had been asking my cousin and her man if they knew anyone who would shoot him for $500,” she said. “They all said no. I felt sorry for him. I called a few of my friends.”
An acquaintance, Felix Padilla, was willing to take on the job, Ms. Gonzalez told the police. They drove to East Gun Hill Road. “I smoked a cigarette and kept my eyes closed because I did not want to see it coming,” Mr. Aponte told the police.
Mr. Aponte escaped indictment by telling the grand jury of the horrors that he said he had witnessed in Iraq. Because no kind deed — especially a bullet to the leg — goes unpunished, Ms. Gonzalez and Mr. Padilla were indicted on charges of felony assault. They are awaiting trial.
After Mr. Aponte’s success with the grand jury, prosecutors said they learned that he really hadn’t seen all that much gore. To avoid a charge of felony perjury, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and was sent to jail.
For now, Mr. Aponte appears to be one of the very few people in America — if not the only one — to go to jail for lying about the Iraq war, a conflict nurtured in the deceptions and errors of people in positions of great responsibility. Mr. Aponte, for his part, marked his 21st birthday at Rikers Island in January.
He had learned one big lesson, he said: “Don’t shoot yourself.”