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25 Years for Attempted Murder

Sabas Martinez
Sabas Martinez
Suffolk County District Attorney's office
Second trial, six years after attack, results in conviction for Springs man
By
Taylor K. Vecsey

Nearly six years after a Springs man was accused of shooting, stabbing, and beating his estranged girlfriend, in front of their children, he is headed to state prison. Suffolk County Criminal Court Judge Timothy Mazzei handed down a maximum sentence of 25 years to Sabas Martinez on Friday.

On Feb. 13, 2011, East Hampton Town police arrested Mr. Martinez after he attacked Noemi Sanchez, with whom he has three daughters, two of whom witnessed the assault in their house on Squaw Road. Police said at the time that he was waiting for Ms. Sanchez when she came home at 1:30 a.m., and he beat her, stabbed her in the head with a kitchen knife, and shot her with an air rifle before his daughters persuaded him to let their mother go. He then cut his neck and wrists in front of them.

Amayrani Martinez, who was 16 at the time and helped disarm her father during the attack, addressed the court on Friday, saying, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota’s office reported, that she had “lost the father she knew and admired.” She said her father had shown that “his true self was a very different person than the person that she had looked up to.”

She also spoke of the severe emotional trauma that she, her two sisters, 11 and 22 years old at the time, and her mother experienced, adding that they had persevered nonetheless. Ms. San­chez, who was 40 when the attack occurred, was hospitalized for her injuries and underwent surgery. She has since recovered.

A jury convicted Mr. Martinez, 44, on the charge of attempted murder in the second degree on Nov. 16, but it was not his first trial. In 2015, a jury deadlocked on the attempted-murder charge but found him guilty of second-degree assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and endangering the welfare of a child. At that trial, he was acquitted of assault in the first degree and of first-degree burglary charges.

Following a grand jury indictment in 2011, prosecutors said that he was homeless and living with relatives. Ms. Sanchez was reportedly asked to take him back, but she refused. He then sent her a text message saying she would regret that decision. In fact, Ms. Sanchez had sought an order of protection from Mr. Martinez just days before the attack, as well as help from the Retreat, the East Hampton-based domestic violence agency.

Mr. Martinez, a Mexican national, was already a convicted felon at the time of the attack. He had been released on bond from an immigration detention center four months earlier, and deportation proceedings against him were pending. According to court papers, he had been convicted of felony driving while intoxicated and had been arrested 10 times.

He has been held at Suffolk County jail in Riverside since the 2011 arrest.

After he serves his 25-year sentence, he will be under post-release supervision for five years, on the highest count, attempted murder. He also received a seven-year sentence, plus three years of post-release supervision, on the assault charge — one year on each of the weapon and child endangerment charges. All the sentences run concurrently.

 

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