Man Who Took a Sledgehammer to Quantico’s Iwo Jima Statue Climbed Down and Gave Himself Up, Agent Says
An NCIS affidavit says Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano used a sledgehammer from his vehicle and admitted the damage. He faces up to 10 years.
Federal prosecutors have charged a 27-year-old Stafford, Virginia, man with smashing the Iwo Jima Memorial outside Marine Corps Base Quantico with a sledgehammer, knocking the head off one of the Marine figures.
Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano, a Mexican national, is charged by criminal complaint with willfully injuring property of the United States and willfully injuring a monument on public property that honors members of the armed forces, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said on Oct. 26, 2026. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. The allegations have not been proven in court.
Besides the head, the damage included several rifle barrels broken off the statue and other parts defaced, prosecutors said. FOX 5 DC, citing authorities, reported the damage to the limestone monument at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What the NCIS agent wrote
The sworn affidavit by Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Shane Brisky, filed in case No. 1:26-mj-425, says Prince William County police arrived at the statue at about 10:15 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2026, and found Maldonado Soriano “actively destroying” it. He “immediately climbed down from the statue and presented himself” for arrest without resistance, the agent wrote.
An eyewitness had called police and recorded video of the damage being done, and turned the video over to officers, according to the affidavit.
At the Garfield Police Station in Woodbridge, a county detective questioned him while the NCIS agent watched from an observation room. Maldonado Soriano admitted damaging the memorial, the affidavit says. He told the detective the sledgehammer came from his vehicle, where he kept it because he works in construction. The affidavit does not give a reason for the damage.
A state case and a federal case
The federal charges cite 18 U.S.C. § 1369, the law against destroying veterans’ memorials on federal property, and 18 U.S.C. § 1361, the federal property damage law. A magistrate judge signed off on the complaint by telephone on Oct. 23, 2026, and an arrest warrant was issued the same day, the docket shows.
Maldonado Soriano also faces state felony charges. FOX 5 DC reported that a Prince William County Circuit Court judge granted him bond on Oct. 26, 2026, and that it was not immediately clear whether he had posted it. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said he was in state custody and would face the federal charges once transferred.
