Marriott pleads guilty to 3 counts

The Steamboat Classic winner received a sentence of time served and was dismissed from the Marine Corps.

Delbert Marriott entered three guilty pleas Tuesday in his court-martial proceedings at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and was sentenced to 76 days of confinement and dismissed from the Marine Corps, according to a spokesman for the Marine Corps.

Marriott, who won the Steamboat Classic triathlon on April 24 in Cape Girardeau while absent without leave, was apprehended at Central Municipal Pool in Cape Girardeau on May 4 and was returned to Camp Lejeune.

He pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and to two counts of absent without leave, one of which had been pleaded down from a desertion charge. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of making false official statements, which Marine Corps prosecutors decided not to pursue, and the charge was dismissed.

Marriott's sentence of 76 days corresponded to his time of confinement in prison at Camp Lejeune.

He has been dismissed from the Marines, though public information officer Lt. Clark Carpenter was not certain on the terms and conditions of the dismissal.

Marriott had joined the Marines on a six-year contract on Nov. 3, 2001.

He was a captain working as a trainer for combat swimming tactics at a swimming pool at Camp Johnson in Camp Lejeune when he was declared a deserter on April 1.

Marriott, who was listed as a native of Blodgett, Mo., in a May 2004 Columbia Daily Tribune story on his participation in a triathlon there, returned to Southeast Missouri this spring. He competed in the Steamboat triathlon and announced intentions to begin a triathlon club.