Before the conviction, Charles Martinez had faced decades of allegations at Houston schools and at his Brazoria County ranch, including charges he’d groomed young girls on the phone, sexually abused children and later raped a teenager. This final complaint ended in the guilty verdict and sentence.
Prosecutors called Martinez a self-proclaimed evangelist who for decades preyed on children.
“He was not employed by any church,” prosecutor Andrew Figliuzzi said. “Throughout this trial, we showed that he was the wolf in sheep’s clothing that the book he preaches from warns us about.”
The jury on Tuesday convicted the 60-year-old on two counts of sexual assault of a child. The assaults began in 2012 and continued at least through 2015, when the girl’s father reported the abuse to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Judge Hazel B. Jones will decide Thursday whether Martinez will serve 30 years — 15 years for each count consecutively — or run the punishments concurrently.
The victim told authorities that she often helped Martinez take care of his animals and he showered her with gifts, a common practice among abusers that experts refer to as grooming. When the sexual abuse started, he would not wear a condom — telling the child that “he was ‘too old’ for her to get pregnant,” according to court documents. At the time, Martinez was 51 and the child 14.
The first sexual assault happened in a trailer at his ranch and the attacks continued at Martinez’s home, records show.
“The defendant had initially drawn her out to his ranch trailer to introduce her to his horses,” according to court documents.
During the girl’s counseling session after the initial outcry, she revealed that years prior to her assaults, Martinez had sexually abused her adult sister who is intellectually disabled, according to court documents. The older sister’s allegation prompted a separate charge of aggravated sexual assault of a disabled person.
Investigators learned that Martinez spotted the older sister riding her bicycle in their neighborhood and invited her into his home. He then raped her in a bedroom. He raped the child on more than one occasion, according to court records. The older sister may have been around 14 at the time.
The charge related to the older sister is expected to be dismissed, but the evidence in that case was used in the younger sister’s trial.
“We’ve now saved that victim from having to testify under difficult circumstances,” Figliuzzi said.
Before the sentencing, Martinez’s mother, Elvira Martinez, paced outside the courtroom. The sentencing was delayed for more than an hour while the court waited for Martinez’s suit to be delivered to the courthouse.
During the sentencing trial, the preacher’s mother testified that her son often cares for her. She was the only witness to take the stand.
“He holds out his arm so I can hold onto him — takes me to the grocery store,” the elderly woman said.
The judge said Thursday she would consider the prosecution’s request to “stack” Martinez’s sentences, or run them consecutively.
Defense attorney Stanley Schneider said he did not think back-to-back sentences would be appropriate and that the judge should not consider testimony from other victims in making her decision. Their charges were not before the jury, he explained.
Martinez posted bond after his April 2015 arrest but returned to jail on multiple occasions for bond violations related to missing curfew and dead batteries in his ankle monitor.
Martinez’s arrest in 2015 followed years of allegations from youth in Houston and Brazoria County. A Brazoria County grand jury in 2001 indicted him following claims that he abused children at his Brazosport ranch, which he billed as a faith-based refuge — on 2 acres — for at-risk youth.
A jury convicted Martinez on those charges and he was sentenced to prison. The verdict, however, was overturned on appeal and he pleaded guilty to a lesser, misdemeanor charge, prosecutors said. The victims, a boy and girl, were 13 at the time of the abuse.
Schneider encouraged the jury to consider that Martinez has never been convicted of a felony offense prior to their ruling.
Victims in the Brazoria County case and others testified during the Harris County trial that Martinez had sexually assaulted them in the 1990s and 2000s.
Martinez was previously employed as an assistant principal at Edison Middle School in Houston’s East End. He resigned from that position in July 2000 — following years of employment with HISD — after the school initiated an internal investigation into allegations he had been sexual harassing several female students. Court records indicate that Martinez was suspended in May 2000 following claims of “inappropriate use of district time and resources, unprofessional behavior and attempt to influence a witness.”
Documents show Martinez used his position to “promote and facilitate the use of the ‘Mustang Christian Ranch’” — the Brazosport ranch — to Edison students during school hours. In 1994, while a teacher at Shearn Elementary School, he faced claims that he sexually coerced female students, according to HISD memos shared in court records.
Prosecutors in this month’s trial told the jury Martinez had been sexually abusing children since the 1990s and that there are likely additional victims who never came to the attention of officials. The preacher often traveled to Haiti and the Philippines for missionary trips, and prosecutors speculated that he may have victimized people while abroad.
