A Hesperia man who spent nearly five years in jail for suspected child molestation but was acquitted a year ago at trial is suing a San Bernardino County prosecutor and sheriff’s detectives for wrongfully accusing him.
Pedro Martinez, a former janitor at Maple Elementary School in Hesperia, says the case against him was based on the “fantastical claims” of an admitted opioid addict who had an extensive history of fabricating similar accusations against others, according to the lawsuit filed Monday, Dec. 2, in U.S. District Court in Riverside on behalf of Martinez and his wife, Juliette Mondragon de Martinez.
The lawsuit, which alleges Fourth and Fourteenth amendment violations of due process, fabrication of evidence and other wrongdoing, names as defendants the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, sheriff’s Deputies Josette Tracy, Brian Arias, and Jonathan Womelsdorf, and Deputy District Attorney Deena Pribble.
A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department declined to comment Wednesday, citing the ongoing litigation. The District Attorney’s Office also declined to comment.
The lawsuit also names as a defendant Paul Matiasic, a personal injury attorney who is representing the family of one of Martinez’s alleged victims in a civil lawsuit filed in December 2023. He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Denied abuse
Three of Martinez’s four alleged victims — all Maple Elementary students when the allegations surfaced — denied he abused them, but investigating Deputy Womelsdorf was able to get one of the students, identified in the lawsuit as “X.M.,” to allege Martinez abused him through manipulation, threatening to call his dad and giving him candy for providing the deputy with the desired responses, according to the lawsuit.
Additionally, no forensic evidence linked Martinez to the alleged crimes or proved that any of his victims had been sexually abused.
Despite the evidence supporting Martinez’s innocence, he was charged with 11 felony counts of child sexual abuse, including sexual intercourse/sodomy with a child age 10 or younger, oral copulation and sending harmful matter, such as pornography, to a minor for the purpose of seduction.
One of the charges was dismissed during Martinez’s 3 1/2-month trial, and, in December 2023, a jury acquitted him of the remaining 10 counts.
‘Fantastical’ claims
The allegations against Martinez were brought forward by a friend of the mother of one of the alleged victims, a 6-year-old boy identified in the lawsuit as “I.R.”
She told investigators that the boy, over a seven-hour period, explained in detail how Martinez had systematically sexually abused him and three other boys, including sexually assaulting them in various classrooms and in a janitor’s closet.
The woman also told investigators Martinez showed the boys videos of him sexually assaulting other children, forced them to beat each other up to hide evidence of sexual assault, and used a “Mickey Mouse tickler” when he sexually abused the boys, according to the lawsuit.
But the boy who told the woman this, according to the lawsuit, had “learning challenges” and was unable to speak for extended periods of time or in complete sentences, and, therefore, could have not made such detailed disclosures.
“The entirety of the case was based on the absurd and fantastical claims of … a self-confessed opioid addict with a criminal history who had repeatedly made multiple extremely similar allegations against others, including two nearly identical allegations against others made during the year Mr. Martinez was arrested,” according to the lawsuit. “The claims … were simply too fantastical to be considered accurate by a responsible person, and claims concerning activities that happened at school were easily disprovable.”
No physical evidence
All forensic testing performed by sheriff’s investigators, the lawsuit states, further established Martinez’s innocence.
A crime scene analysis of the janitor’s closet at the school where some of the abuse allegedly occurred resulted in no findings of blood or semen, and a DNA analysis of the children’s clothing taken on the day of one of the alleged assaults also turned up negative for semen, blood and DNA, according to the lawsuit.
A forensic analysis of Martinez’s phone, computers and other electronic devices turned up no evidence of child sexual abuse or pornography, according to the lawsuit.
Nightmare behind bars
Martinez, who has been married 28 years and is the father of an adult son and daughter, said that prior to his incarceration he had a spotless record — not so much as a parking ticket. So when he was arrested in January 2019 and booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, he was sure a mistake had been made and he wouldn’t be there long.
“The first night was unforgettable. It was scary, chaotic. I thought somebody made a mistake and somebody was going to figure it out and I was going to be let out soon, but of course it never happened,” Martinez, 51, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
And for the next five years, Martinez adapted to jail life while his wife was forced to work extra hours — upwards of 50 to 60 hours a week — as a medical records clerk at a local hospital to cover the mortgage and bills on their three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot home. Those extra hours also covered the additional cost of family phone calls to talk to Martinez at the jail and to buy him commissary items, Martinez said.
Many nights he fought the despair.
“Just countless, sleepless nights asking myself, ‘Why me? Why is this happening to me? I would never hurt a fly,’ ” Martinez said.
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His attorney, Katherine McBroom, said she is hoping the lawsuit draws more attention to the systemic failures that resulted in Martinez’s unjust incarceration and prompts changes in how such cases are investigated.
“Obviously, just compensation is warranted for an injustice he suffered, but, most importantly, maybe this could lead to come kind of change in training and supervision of law enforcement officers,” McBroom said Wednesday. “Law enforcement needs to be mindful of not being committed to a narrative off the bat. Everyone is untitled to an unbiased, fair investigation.”
