Ex-Parris Island Marine, convicted in 2017 hazing scandal, arrested near Beaufort
A former drill instructor at Parris Island, who in 2017 was convicted by a military jury in a high-profile scandal involving his abuse and hazing of recruits, was arrested early this week in the Beaufort area for allegedly abusing his son.
Joseph Anthony Felix, 42, was booked on a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to children Sunday afternoon. He was released from the Beaufort County jail the following morning on a personal recognizance bond, court records show.
Felix, a 15-year Marine Corps veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing recruits in his charge at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and targeting three Muslim former trainees in what one prosecutor called a “hate crime.”
Prosecutors said Felix abused nearly 20 recruits and made others perform unauthorized punishment exercises. He was also convicted of slapping Muslim recruit Raheel Siddiqui in the face moments before the 20-year-old fell off a barracks stairwell to his death.
Ex-drill instructor’s arrest in Beaufort
Police responded to Felix’s home in the Roseida subdivision near the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort around 4 p.m. Sunday, after his son’s friend urged the boy to tell police about the severe cuts on his neck, according to Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Robert Herlong.
Finding the boys on the side of the road, a deputy noted the cuts to the victim’s neck looked “as if something had scraped it with excessive force,” a police report says.
Although much of the report is redacted, the deputy concluded with a note saying he would charge Felix due to “the excessive physical punishment” that caused the cuts to the boy’s neck.
The boy was taken into emergency protective custody and police filed a report with the Department of Social Services, the report says. Herlong would not specify the age of the victim, whose name was redacted in the incident report.
It was not immediately clear when Felix had been released from prison.
Felix’s misdemeanor charge of cruelty to children, defined in part as ill-treating or “inflict(ing) unnecessary pain or suffering upon a child,” is punishable by a maximum of 30 days in prison or a fine of up to $200.
