A 58-year-old state Department of Public Safety training officer, charged with crimes related to falsifying her academic transcripts that she submitted to internal affairs investigators, pleaded guilty Tuesday to four of the 14 crimes she was originally charged with.
J. Marte Martinez entered into a plea deal with the Department of the Attorney General, pleading guilty to two counts of tampering with a government record and two counts of unsworn falsification to authorities, which are all misdemeanors.
The Attorney General’s Office will dismiss the other 10 offenses, including two counts of perjury, a Class C felony, at sentencing.
Martinez’s lying about her credentials was among the myriad problems with the department under former Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda, who hired Marti-nez as DPS’s Training and Staff Development administrator, according to state legislators.
In April 2019 then-Sen. Clarence Nishihara, chairman of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, presented the committee’s findings in the Senate against the reappointment of Espinda. He cited Martinez as part of the DPS’s problems under Espinda, which included an unprecedented number of fatal shootings by Public Safety officers.
Among them were a disabled, homeless man at the Capitol, shot by a deputy sheriff, and a 47-year-old man who escaped from the Oahu Community Correctional Center, shot by a guard in the surrounding neighborhood. That man was picked up by DPS personnel and taken back to OCCC rather than immediately brought to the hospital by ambulance.
“The sheriff that shot and killed the homeless individual in the rotunda, just above us, was trained by this trainer,” Nishihara said at the time. “She has neither the training or the certification to do this job.”
He said Martinez had not only lied on her job application about educational institutions, but also overstated her experience in public safety positions at sheriff’s departments on the mainland.
Nishihara also said she was promoted by DPS supervisors and put in charge of training the guards and sheriffs.
Espinda, who would have likely been called to the stand if Martinez had stood trial, retired from Public Safety in 2020 and was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a Kailua beach on May 19, 2022.
Martinez is scheduled for sentencing Jan. 31 before Judge Faauuga Tootoo. She faces up to a year in prison and a $2,000 fine for each of the four charges.
“Under the terms of the plea agreement, the state can argue for up to 120 days’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $8,000, in addition to a one-year term of probation for each of the four counts that would run concurrently,” a spokesman for the Department of the Attorney General said.
The plea agreement does not allow her to ask for early termination of probation, nor can she move for deferred acceptance of her guilty pleas.
In the plea agreement she admitted to tampering with government record. While a public employee, she submitted on Aug. 15, 2019, a University of Southern Oregon transcript containing false information to DPS during an internal investigation.
She also admitted to unsworn falsification to authorities. She submitted on July 22, 2019, a University of Northern Virginia transcript containing false information and statements to DPS during an internal investigation. And on Aug. 15, 2019, she submitted with intent to mislead a public servant a false University of Southern Oregon transcript, according to court records.
“Ms. Martinez knowingly submitted false documents about her educational background to misdirect an internal investigation looking into that exact issue,” said Attorney General Anne Lopez. “The people of Hawaii rightfully expect integrity from public servants, and the Department of the Attorney General will forcefully prosecute this type of criminal behavior.”
Deputy Attorney General Lauren Nakamura, with the Special Investigation and Prosecution Division, is lead prosecutor on the case.
In addition to two counts of perjury, the state at sentencing will dismiss four counts of tampering with a government record and four counts of unsworn falsification to authorities. Some of the charges go back to May and June 2017.
