A previously convicted child sex offender has pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree sexual assault for offering to perform a sex act on a 12-year-old boy who knocked on the McCully man’s apartment door in April 1999 to play video games.
Gilbert Martines, 53, will receive a 10-year prison term as part of the plea agreement when he is sentenced by Circuit Judge Reynaldo Graulty on March 15. He pleaded guilty Jan. 9.
Martines, a one-time teacher, faced a charge of attempted first-degree sexual assault before his plea to the lesser charge. The previous charge carried a maximum 20-year term.
"It’s a good plea agreement for us," said city deputy prosecutor Marcus Sierra. He said he would ask the parole board to order Martines to serve the full 10-year term.
Martines also pleaded guilty to second-degree promotion of child abuse for having computer images of minors engaged in sexual conduct, prosecutors said.
His attorney, Valerie Vargo, said it was the "best (Martines) could do" given the state’s evidence, which was "insurmountable" for the promotion of child abuse. "I expect at the parole board he will get a pretty tough minimum," Vargo said, noting that he also would receive treatment as a sex offender.
"Hopefully it will work with him, and he won’t be a danger when he gets out," she said.
But Sierra called Martines an "extreme danger" as a repeat offender. In 1982, he was convicted of first-degree sex abuse involving boys 12 and 15.
He was on probation for five years and went through sex offender treatment then, too, Sierra said.
In the latest case, the 12-year-old learned of video games that Martines had through another youth, Sierra said. He said Martines began to "groom" the boy for a sexual relationship. Authorities say the boy rebuffed Martines when he attempted to engage in sex with him.
When charges were brought in 1999, a man claiming he had been victimized by Martines in 1989, at age 13, accused police of failing to follow up on a sexual assault report he had filed in 1992. Police officials admitted procedure had not been followed, but by then the statute of limitations had expired.
