13TH COURT OF APPEALS DENIES TOUCAN WAITER BATTERER'S PLEA

 Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The 13th Court of Appeals denied a Brownsville man's appeal of his conviction who was charged with brutally beating his girlfriend in 2021 and who is serving a 25 year prison sentence and was fined $10,000. 

A jury fund Amado Martinez Jr. guilty after a three-day trial in the 357th District Court under Judge Juan A. Magallanes on January 2023. Initially, he faced charges of attempt to commit murder, aggravated assault with a weapon and burglary of a habitation with intent to commit another felony.  His conviction was for the aggravated assault charge. 

His appeal claimed that extensive pre-trial publicity on his case in El Rrun-Rrun prejudiced his case and that the court should have granted his request for a change of venue, that the state had not delivered all of the defense's last-minute motions for discovery, and that his conviction on the one charge – aggravated assault – had been erased through a clerical error that dismissed the other two charges. 

The denial of his appeal was issued yesterday, December 12.

Martinez was arrested Oct. 18. 2021, by Brownsville police and the U.S. Marshal's Task Force.

On Sept. 15, 2021, officers with the Brownsville Police Department responded to an assault call to an apartment complex on the 2400 block of Barnard Road where they found a 49-year-old woman badly beaten lying on the asphalt in a basketball court area.

According to the police department, the woman had been “severely beaten and had several lacerations on her face.” Veronica Rivas Cespedes – a popular waitress at the Toucan Lounge – was tortured by Martinez, her boyfriend. The assault included pulling off her fingernails and chopping off her hair before she  was left for dead from the vicious beating, according to friends and relatives. 

The woman told officers that Martinez had assaulted her inside of the apartment, according to police report. The woman sustained a fractured cheekbone and both of her eyes were swollen shut. She remained in the hospital for a week due to her injuries, police said.

A photo of the obviously battered woman that made the rounds of social media and among her friends showed that she was the victim of a savage beating. Comments to this blog at the time indicate that the assailant believed the woman was dead before he fled.

"Police told the family to keep quiet make believe that she was dead so they could make an arrest," said a family friend. 

Her co-workers at the lounge where she worked held a fundraiser to help her with medical expenses.

Police obtained an arrest warrant for Martinez and he was taken into custody. His bond was set at $1 million and then raised to $3 million due to the extreme violent character of the offense.

"We feel that justice had been served on this defendant," said Cameron County D.A. Luis V. Saenz. "I was very proud of our staff for fighting for the victim and getting this violent individual off the street."