A former San Bernardino County elementary school janitor who was acquitted by a jury of child sex abuse charges after spending nearly five years in prison fighting the case has sued San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials and prosecutors for alleged misconduct.
Attorneys for Pedro “Pete” Martinez and his wife filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday alleging false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and other civil rights violations.
It alleges that both San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department investigators and a prosecutor from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office aggressively pursued a conviction in the case, despite it being based on “outlandish, fantastic, impossible” claims by a “a self-confessed opioid addict with a criminal history who had repeatedly made multiple very similar accusations against others, including two nearly identical accusations against others made in the year Mr. Martinez was arrested.”
Martinez was jailed from the time of his arrest on January 22, 2019, until a San Bernardino County Superior Court found him not guilty of all ten felony charges filed against him on December 11, 2023. An eleventh charge had previously been dismissed due to lack of supporting evidence. He was released the same day.
If he had been convicted of the charges, he could have received multiple life sentences.
‘They made a mistake’
He had worked as a custodian at Maple Elementary School in Hesperia for nearly 14 years when he first learned he was accused of sexually assaulting four young students at the school, he said. Initially, he said he expected officials would realize he was innocent and release him within hours. But the hours turned into days, months and years, with him still unable to post the $2.2 million bond required for his pre-trial release.
“As you can imagine, it has really warped my mental state to the point where I become depressed,” says Martinez, now 51. “I don’t think I’ve slept eight hours in six years.”
Martinez said he had never been arrested before as he recalled his first day in jail.
“It was my first experience ever in a situation like this. I’ve never had a parking ticket in my life,” he said. “It was horrible. And even then I still held on to the small hope that ‘they made a mistake. I’m sure they’ll find out in a few hours.'”
As the years passed behind bars, “I held on to as much hope as I could,” Martinez said.
Being separated from his family, including his wife and two adult children, was the most difficult aspect, he said. For about a year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, even family visits were halted.
“It was devastating not to be able to see anyone,” Martinez said. Martinez’s wife had to work 60 hours a week to keep the household running while he was in prison.
Both the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office declined to comment on the pending lawsuit.
‘Overwhelming evidence of innocence’
Attorney Katherine McBroom of the Law Firm of Ian Wallach, who is representing Martinez, said the arrest and prosecution should never have happened because of the implausibility of the allegations and the lack of physical evidence.
“I think it’s unfortunate that it took 12 strangers with no training to do the right thing and actually review the evidence,” she said.
“Pedro Martinez endured nearly five years of wrongful incarceration, separated from his family and forced to endure the stigma of baseless accusations despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence,” McBroom said. “This case is a stark reminder of what happens when investigations are motivated by bias and disregard for due process. We must hold those responsible accountable to protect the integrity of our justice system and ensure this never happens to anyone else.”
In addition to seeking compensation for her client, “The hope is that from here the county will implement better training and better supervision, including an effort to uphold their oath to serve everyone in the community, including the accused, to provide thorough , conduct unbiased actions, so that we can avoid this tunnel vision.”
‘Absurd and fantastic claims’
The case against Martinez, according to McBroom, was mainly the result of the “easily rebuttable” claims of a highly unreliable witness.
“(The) allegations were so impossible and fantastic that any reasonable person or law enforcement official would have investigated her background to determine their veracity rather than taking her word for it at face value,” the complaint continued.
One of the allegations was that “Mr. Martinez took in multiple children for gang rapes that occurred daily Monday through Thursday for several months,” according to the claim.
In addition to the County of San Bernardino and its sheriff’s department, the defendants named in the lawsuit include two sheriff’s detectives, a sheriff’s deputy, the prosecutor and an attorney representing one of the alleged victims in ongoing civil lawsuits against the Hesperia Unified School District. according to court documents and McBroom.
The first complainant who first came forward with the allegations told investigators that she determined that Martinez had abused her then-girlfriend’s daughter and three other boys at school based on conversations with her friend’s son and observations of the behavior of the boys together, McBroom said.
The criminal case involved only two of the prosecutors because the other two consistently maintained that nothing criminal had happened, she said.
Of the two prosecutors against whom charges were filed against Martinez, both also initially told investigators that nothing had happened.
“Despite intensive leading and repeated questioning by (the first investigating officer), which was completely inconsistent with the minimal training (4 hours) that (he) received from defendant SBCSD, (the three boys) repeatedly denied any abuse by anyone (including Mr. Martinez),” the complaint states.
During the audio-recorded interviews, one of the boys “eventually succumbed to (the deputy’s) manipulation as a result of the repetitive, leading questions, use of treats and praise, and discouragement of denials,” the complaint alleges.
The other boy against whom charges were filed insisted in interviews that he had not been abused until the day he was called to testify at Martinez’s trial, McBroom said.
The boy testified that the attorney named in the lawsuit, along with a San Francisco-based therapist, had since “helped him remember” that he had been abused.
‘Zero physical evidence’
Investigations by the Sexual Assault Response Team found no evidence of abuse, the lawsuit alleges. Clothing worn by the victims during the alleged abuse was tested and no bodily fluids or DNA were recovered. The janitor’s closet where the alleged assault took place showed no detectable traces of blood or semen.
“There is no physical evidence at all,” McBroom said.
“And once these defendants learned that the allegations were untrue, rather than having the integrity to end the baseless prosecution against Mr. Martinez, they instead chose to attempt to undermine the integrity of the botched investigation and preserve each other’s reputations by perpetuating the baseless claims against Mr. Martinez. Mr. Martinez,” the claim states. “These defendants concealed exculpatory evidence, coached witnesses, and rather than even reviewing the overwhelming exculpatory evidence, attempted to conceal such evidence from the jury and/or exclude its presentation.”
Martinez said the experience changed his perspective on law enforcement and the justice system.
More: Former janitor at a Hesperia school has been acquitted of child abuse after years in prison
“I used to always keep our law enforcement there along with our military and firefighters,” he said. “With what has happened, it is difficult for me to hold them up so high. The justice system has failed me.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and demands a jury trial.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Man acquitted in sexual assault case sues San Bernardino County
