Rapist From Corona Gets Life In Prison

A Corona man who raped four women and a 14-year-old girl over the course of nine years in Orange County was sentenced today to 66 years to life in prison.

Max Danilo Martinez, 33, targeted women who needed rides, beginning in 2000, and in one case bought alcohol for a pair of high school girls before raping one of them in his apartment, according to Orange County Deputy District Attorney Jess Rodriguez.

"I'm glad he's going to be locked up for the rest of his life," the prosecutor said outside the Santa Ana courtroom where the defendant was sentenced. "He's an extremely dangerous person who got away with his crimes for more than a decade."

Martinez was convicted in August of three counts of forcible rape and one count each of forcible rape of an unconscious victim and sexual penetration with a foreign object by force. Jurors also found true sentencing enhancements for multiple victims.

The Orange County Superior Court jury deadlocked 6-6 on one count of rape and two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object relating to one alleged victim in Orange in April 2008.

Martinez's attorney, Shannon Winston of the Orange County Public Defender's Office, contended that all of the victims lied about their "consensual" sexual encounters with the defendant.

But Rodriguez told jurors that the defendant would find "girls who need a ride. He talks to them, makes nice with them," and then sexually assaults them.

Rodriguez said Martinez met his first victim on May 6, 2000, while the Westminster High School freshman was with a friend on a Saturday night at a shopping mall in Orange then called The Block, Rodriguez said.

Martinez, who was 20 at the time, pulled up in his car and offered the teenage girls a ride, Rodriguez said.

"The defendant played the role of the cool, older guy," who bought alcohol at a liquor store and took them back to his apartment, Rodriguez said.

He eventually drove one of the girls home, but took the other girl back to his apartment and raped her, the prosecutor said.

Rodriguez said Martinez met his other victims at various locations, inviting one out for drinks at a Westminster mall, and pulling up alongside others who were walking in Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Corona and offering them rides. He would generally buy the victims alcohol, and sometimes raped them inside his vehicle, the prosecutor said. --City News Service