A federal magistrate ordered a veteran U.S. military combat photographer released from a federal detention center Friday, on condition he returns to court for next week’s federal passport fraud trial.
Navy Reserves Petty Officer Elisha Leo Dawkins, 26, had been held in a downtown federal lockup for six weeks. He was arrested in Jacksonville soon after he returned from a seven-month stint at Guantánamo, where he chronicled the lives of war on terror detainees.
Friday, Dawkins walked out of court in a tan federal detainee uniform identical to those worn by cooperative captives at Guantánamo. He stopped to tell a pair of reporters how grateful he was for support from friends, fellow service members and strangers — until his attorney whisked him away.
“I don’t think there’s any dispute that he’s a patriot,” said defense lawyer Clark Mervis, successfully arguing to remove the indigent veteran’s $10,000 bond requirement.
Replied Magistrate Judge William C. Turnoff: “He takes good pictures, too.”
A strange case, Dawkins is charged with a single felony count of lying on a federal document, his 2006 passport application. In it, he swore that he had never before applied for a U.S. passport, although he filled out an application three years earlier.
Conviction could land him in federal prison for 10 years, and end his military career. He could also face deportation to the Bahamas.
That’s because there’s a twist: U.S. immigration authorities ordered him removed from U.S. soil two decades ago along with his mother, who was deported to her native Bahamas as an illegal resident. He was 8, and didn’t go. Rather, Dawkins grew up with relatives, went to Miami schools and joined the U.S. army, according to his lawyer, all the while believing he was a U.S. citizen.
So did the Pentagon. Dawkins served as an Army specialist during the Iraqi surge in 2007, assigned to a public affairs unit that trailed combat soldiers, then got an honorable discharge. He moved to Jacksonville, studied to become a nurse and enlisted in the Navy Reserves, which posted him to Guantánamo.
He registered to vote in 2002, as a Democrat. And at age 21 obtained a delayed State of Florida Birth Certificate declaring he was born in Miami-Dade County on Oct. 21, 1984
None of this was uncovered during two military enlistments, in which he obtained a “secret” security clearance that gave him special access to the Pentagon’s intelligence and detention complex at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
His jury trial is slated to start Tuesday before Judge Cecilia Altonaga because Dawkins spurned an offer from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for an undisclosed pre-trial probation plan that would spare him the possibility of a felony conviction.
The magistrate agreed to the release so long as Dawkins stayed either in South Florida or his home in Jacksonville, in coordination with federal officials. He also limited his contacts to lawyers, accountants, doctors, dentist or clergy. As a condition of release, he also ordered him to turn over to authorities any foreign travel documents, such as a Bahamian passport — if he has one.
The case has garnered nationwide attention, including a Facebook page, and stirred Internet debate on whether Dawkins is dishonorable for his alleged deception or a hero for his service.
So much so that defense attorney Mervis said an unnamed three-star Navy officer rang his law firm to declare, “I hear we have a sailor in trouble. Can I help?” Mervis, moreover, told the judge that a retired Navy pilot and Air Force master sergeant who supervised him in Iraq would be at the trial, either to testify or offer moral support.
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