Thread: Serial Rapist gets Hotshot Lawyer

The taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill for this "high-dollar" lawyer for this piece of scum.

Accused serial rapist to get private defender
By Jared Allen, jallen@nashvillecitypaper.com
July 06, 2006

When accused serial rapist Ruben Hernandez Martinez makes his next court appearance in August, he will be alongside one of the Nashville area’s most tenacious criminal and civil litigators - attorney Jerry Gonzalez.

On Wednesday, Martinez appeared in court for the first time since his extradition from Mexico was completed late last month.

Martinez had been indicted in 2002 by a Davidson County grand jury on 26 counts of aggravated rape, four counts of aggravated burglary and two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping. But he had fled to his native Mexico before local authorities could arrest him.

Almost immediately after the grand jury issued the indictment, however, Mexican police arrested Martinez. He remained in custody in Mexico and was a top 10 FBI fugitive throughout the duration of four years’ worth of extradition negotiations between the United States and Mexico.

Martinez, who is being held in Davidson County jail without bond, is accused of participating in at least four separate home invasion rapes, all of which allegedly occurred between 1997 and 1998 while he was working as a day laborer in South Nashville neighborhoods.

According to the indictments, Martinez cased his victims’ homes while working as a member of various landscaping and construction crews.
Martinez had an accomplice, Luis Castanon, for at least one of the rapes. Castanon was convicted of five counts of aggravated rape and received a 60-year prison sentence.

But because the Davidson County Public Defender’s Office represented Castanon, it was unable to counsel Martinez, members of the office told Criminal Court Judge Steven Dozier on Wednesday.

So, Dozier asked court officers to find a suitable private Spanish-speaking attorney for Martinez.

Four hours later, Gonzalez appeared in court and entered a plea of not-guilty on all counts on behalf of his new client.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” Gonzalez said after conferring only briefly with Martinez. “I haven’t even looked at the case.”

But Gonzalez is no stranger to high-profile cases, which include his defense last year of a Mexican mother who was ordered by Wilson County Judge Barry Tatum to learn English and take birth control or “[run] the risk of losing any connection — legally, morally and physically — with her daughter forever.”

Gonzalez said his first order of business will be reviewing the transcripts and evidence presented in the Castanon case.

“And I heard there was some discussion of DNA evidence,” Gonzalez said, who noted that preparing a defense will take some time.

“There’s a good chance that by August, the DAs and I still won’t have anything to talk about,” Gonzalez said.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index ... s_id=50801

When accused serial rapist Ruben Hernandez Martinez makes his next court appearance in August, he will be alongside one of the Nashville area’s most tenacious criminal and civil litigators - attorney Jerry Gonzalez.

LaRaza, LuLac and the Mexican Consulates pay for the defense of these criminals.