EDMOND, Ok. (KFOR) – With just a few keystrokes, a click here or there, you can find all kinds of public information on the internet. That includes looking up people’s criminal backgrounds, especially in a state like Oklahoma.
But what’s still puzzling is if that same, simple task was done by anyone with a metro wrestling club that Joseph Dion Martinez was associated with, or with the wrestling association the club is a part of, Oklahoma Kids Wrestling Association (OKWA).
Martinez, 27, was arrested over the weekend for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl, even taking her to a wrestling tournament in Clinton. He was booked into the Oklahoma County jail on five counts of second degree rape and one count of forcible oral sodomy. A charge that Martinez is no stranger to.
In 2011, a then-20-year-old Martinez was charged in McIntosh County with raping a 14-year-old girl. Police were called to a home in Porum Landing by a woman who said her daughter had sex with an adult. Martinez pleaded guilty in 2012 to the charge, was given a suspended sentence and required to register as a sex offender. However, that sentence was amended nearly six months later to require sex offender registration for a maximum of five years.
“Rape in the second degree is a lifetime registration. So to go back and actually change the terms of the plea agreement, after it’s gone through, to make somebody who would normally be a lifetime registered sex offender, to only have them register for five years isn’t something I’ve ever heard of happening before,” said News 4 legal analyst Ed Blau, a criminal defense attorney.
News 4 has still not gotten an answer from McIntosh County prosecutors involved in the case as to why the sentence was amended. The county district attorney at the time passed away last year.
Blau said regardless of the reason, Martinez’ arrest on rape charges – for a second time – presents not just a criminal liability, but a civil one as well.
“In this particular case, it sounds like there was absolutely zero due diligence done as to this individual. What that would tell me is that the victims in this case could have a pretty good lawsuit on their hands, just because the organization didn’t do anything, it sounds like, to make sure that something like this didn’t happen,” Blau said.
For a third day, News 4’s calls, emails, text messages, and social media messages to OKWA officials have gone unreturned.
