CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A military jury Friday sentenced a former Marine drill instructor to 10 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge for subjecting Muslim recruits to verbal and physical abuse, including one young man who committed suicide after an especially troubling encounter.

The eight-member jury issued its sentence a day after it found Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix guilty of maltreatment for terrorizing three Muslim men at the Marines’ storied boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina. Felix also will have his rank reduced to private.

Prosecutors had asked for a seven-year prison term. Felix faced a maximum possible sentence of more than 21 years. It’s not immediately clear why the jury elected to exceed what the prosecution had requested.

The military justice system requires automatic appeals for all prison sentences consisting of a year or more and all dishonorable discharges. Felix will be held at Camp Lejeune’s brig until his expected transfer to a larger prison.

One of Felix’s victims, 20-year-old Raheel Siddiqui, died at Parris Island last year when he fell 40 feet onto a concrete stairwell. Prosecutors said Felix forced Siddiqui to run back and forth in the recruits’ squad bay and then slapped him in the face just before the recruit suddenly sprinted from the room and jumped to his death.

Two other Muslim recruits accused Felix of putting them in an industrial clothes dryer and, in one instance, turning it on.

In all, Felix was convicted of three counts of maltreatment, eight of nine counts of violating general orders, drunk and disorderly conduct, and making false statements. He was acquitted of obstruction of justice.

Felix is a married father of four. He has served in the Marines since 2002.

The jury’s verdict marks the culmination of two years of investigations and courts-martial centered on recruit abuse at Parris Island dating to 2015. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service has investigated 20 Marine drill instructors, officers and staff members amid allegations of hazing, assault and discriminating against Muslim recruits dating to 2015. Thirteen Marines already have faced some form of discipline. Two others await their fate: Felix’s fellow drill instructor Sgt. Michael Eldridge and their former supervisor, Lt. Col. Joshua Kissoon.

Felix, said Lt. Col. John Norman, the prosecutor, “picked out Muslim recruits for special abuse because of their Muslim faith. He degraded their religion and put them in industrial appliances.”

During his closing arguments, Norman described Felix as “drunk on power, and sometimes Fireball whiskey.”

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