A former Camp Pendleton Marine who pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in connection with a deadly fight in 2022 has died of a drug overdose.
Prosecutors on Tuesday dismissed the case against Jack Griffin Isaacson, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to a felony count of battery with serious bodily injury. He had initially faced a felony count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Terry of Laguna Niguel.
Isaacson, 22, died in early June in San Diego, where he was living with his father. The death certificate indicates the cause of death was fentanyl and cocaine toxicity.
He had been scheduled to be sentenced July 12, but the hearing was put off as prosecutors waited to confirm his death.
Isaacson, who had been stationed at Camp Pendleton at the time of his arrest, punched Terry, 38, at a Dana Point restaurant on St. Patrick’s Day in 2022, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
An attorney, John Barnett, said Terry was drunk and acting aggressively toward customers when the conflict began with Isaacson, who is a boxer.
The sentencing was postponed for technical reasons to allow for the felony count to which Isaacson had pled guilty to be reduced to a misdemeanor, Barnett said last year. He began serving a six-month term of home confinement on Aug. 10, 2023.
