Former Doña Ana MP receives prison sentence after sexually abusing arrested woman in 2023

Sept. 4 – A former Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office deputy was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in federal prison for sexually assaulting a woman in his patrol car after arresting her in 2023.

On April 23, 34-year-old Michael A. Martinez pleaded guilty to sexual assault and obstruction of justice for attempting to destroy his patrol car's digital video recording system, which recorded footage of the incident.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces on April 30, 2023, Martinez responded to a crash and arrested a woman for driving under the influence and reckless driving. After the woman received medical attention, he handcuffed her, placed her in the patrol car's SUV, and sexually assaulted her before taking her to jail.

The indictment states that Martinez later attempted to destroy the DVR system “in order to cover up his crimes from earlier that day.”

Martinez was fired from his job in August 2023.

“Sexual assault by police officers is a heinous crime and a shameful betrayal of trust in law enforcement,” Kristen Clark, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a press release. “This defendant's misconduct – abusing the power of his badge, using his authority as a police officer as a weapon, and sexually assaulting a handcuffed victim in the back seat of his patrol car – violated the victim's constitutional rights and basic standards of decency.”

“We encourage survivors to come forward and report these crimes to the FBI. Today's sentence should be a strong signal that the Department of Justice will do everything in its power to hold accountable those who abuse their authority by sexually assaulting people in their care.”

Martinez's prison sentence will be followed by three years of probation and he will have to register as a sex offender, the Justice Department said.

Attempts were made to contact the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office for comment, but no one answered the phone.