Eduardo Moreno, a former train engineer for the Port of Los Angeles, has been sentenced to three years in prison for derailing a train in 2020. Moreno didn’t flee the scene, admitted to the crime, plead insanity before finally taking a plea deal that will see him spend three years in prison and pay a $755,880 fine. According to Moreno and his lawyers, he was all spun up by too much caffeine and too much time online studying QAnon.
According to court documents, Moreno sped a locomotive to the end of the line at the Port of Los Angeles on March 31, 2020. The car derailed, smashed through several barriers and slid through a parking lot before coming to rest near the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship that was docked at the port and caring for COVID-19 patients at the time.
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Moreno didn’t run and a police officer who happened to be driving by was on the scene immediately. “In two post-arrest interviews, Moreno waived his Miranda rights and admitted that he intentionally ran the train off the track, and stated that he wanted to bring attention to the government’s activities regarding COVID-19, and was suspicious of the U.S.N.S. Mercy,” court documents said.
As the officer approached Moreno, he immediately began to talk. “‘You only get this chance once,” Moreno said, according to court documents. “The whole world is watching. I had to. People don’t know what’s going on here. Now they will. At night, they turn off the lights and don’t let anyone in. I’m going to expose this to the world. When was the last time you went to Dodgers’ stadium? We might not be able to go again.’”
In later interviews, Moreno told investigators about his motives at length. “He stated that the USNS Mercy was part of a government conspiracy to bring healthy ‘open-minded’ people onto the ship and ‘get rid of them,’” court documents said. “Defendant described reading internet materials related to conspiracy groups, such as ‘X22 Report,’ the ‘Great Awakening,’ and ‘Q.’”
While in custody, Moreno underwent psychological treatment which included the painting of a large mural that took 9 months to complete. “Both the psychological report as well as the probation office, have found that Mr. Moreno has recovered from his psychotic episode, is on medication, and is no longer drinking the copious amounts of caffeine which may have contributed to the psychosis,” court documents said. “Most critically, Mr. Moreno has disavowed QAnon, which Dr. Newman has noted is ‘likely a positive sign of decreased risk given its centrality to his actions in his current offense.’”
