A plea bargain agreement accepted by District Judge Joel Johnson calls for Maria Lucia Martinez to serve 10 years of community supervision and pay a $1,000 fine.
Martinez pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of injury to a child in hopes of staying out of prison.
She was charged with injuring her stepdaughter five different times on Aug. 2, 2008.
A Bee County grand jury returned five indictments against Martinez in connection with the assaults.
In count one, Martinez is accused of striking the 2-year-oldgirl with her hand so hard it injured the girl.
In count two, she is accused of striking the girl with an unknown object so hard it injured the girl.
In count three, she is accused of fracturing the little girl’s right arm.
In count four, she is accused of fracturing the girl’s metatarsal – or foot bone.
In count five, she is accused of striking the little girl’s pubic bone, injuring her.
Each count is a third degree felony offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Martinez waived her rights to a trial by jury and asked Judge Johnson to decide her punishment.
Under a plea bargain agreement offered by the district attorney’s office, Martinez pleaded guilty to count one in exchange for a lighter sentence and having the remaining four counts dismissed.
The plea bargain called for the district attorney’s office to recommend 10 years deferred adjudication probation.
However, Johnson said he would not accept the plea bargain unless Martinez was convicted of a crime due to the little girl’s injuries.
Under deferred adjudication probation, judgment is deferred until later, if ever. If the offender successfully completes the terms of the probation, then judgment does not take place and the offender has no criminal conviction on her record.
After conferring with Martinez’s attorney, Assistant District Attorney Tim Cariker recommended Martinez serve 10 years regular probation, which means she will have a criminal conviction on her record.
Cariker told the Bee-Picayune after court that he had originally recommended deferred adjudication in order to keep Martinez out of prison because she has three children of her own.
Johnson accepted the plea bargain, found Martinez guilty of the offense and scheduled sentencing for Oct. 20.
I hope she goes to jail for a long long time! She is a peice of trash just like all the others who beat their children! As well as the men who do the same. Three prisons in this little town. They dont even have three prisons in bigger towns like Austin!
People need to get serious and turn them in for things like this!! They all need to be jail!
Let someone beat them like they beat their child.
And if you were abused as a child you can change and be a better person than your parents were with you and siblings.
These people are nothing but trash!! Leave them in prison for the rest of thier lives!
Where were the fathers? So many young people having children who are neither mature nor responsible enough to raise them properly. Child abuse is a cycle with the abused child more likely to abuse their own children in the future.
Many of the young men locked up in TDCJ came from single parent, abusive homes.
How are we ever going to break this cycle if we continue to provide ever increasing benefits to reward out of wedlock births?