Rudy Martinez, falsely accused drug ringleader granted freedom after 25 years
Martinez was born and raised in Chicago. He never knew his father and his mother suffered from depression and alcoholism. Martinez’s older brother went to prison when he was 15 for drug dealing.
Following his brother's example, Martinez began selling marijuana joints at age 12 and cocaine at age 14 to overcome poverty. He was expelled from school after completing the ninth grade and left home at age 16. Martinez nevertheless, takes full responsibility for his actions.
Martinez was sentenced to a mandatory life without parole sentence for his involvement in a St. Paul drug ring that operated out of a farmhouse. Six members of the drug ring were charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The owner of the farmhouse, Cindy Pfluff, the ringleader testified against Martinez pursuant to a plea deal under which she served less than three years in prison.
Cindy Pluff is a bold, ambitious woman who left home at age 16 to become a prostitute ...More than 100 arrests for prostitution eventually made her persona non grata on the Strip, and in 1984 she turned up in Chicago with a string of working girls.
By 1987, Pluff was a major cocaine distributor in the Twin Cities ... She ultimately employed her parents and six siblings in various roles, creating a sophisticated distribution network for an ever-increasing amount of product.
Martinez claims Pfluff, the ringleader who employed him gave false testimony against him and has since admitted that she lied about the extent of Martinez’s involvement in the conspiracy.
According to Martinez, he met Pfluff when he was 19 and working as assistant manager of a Chicago nightclub owned by a man involved in distributing cocaine on Chicago’s North Side. Pluff became a cocaine distributor in the Twin Cities, and Martinez says his boss at the nightclub was one of her suppliers until his death, after which Martinez assumed the role at age 22. According to prosecutors, Martinez and others provided Pluff with cocaine that she then sold in Minnesota.
After a raid on the Minnesota farmhouse in February 1991, Martinez, then 25, turned himself in. He admitted that he sold drugs and had an illegal business relationship with Pluff, but he has consistently denied being the head of the organization and says he did not know about the drug-dealing operation in Minnesota, but was simply one of Pluff ’s suppliers. Martinez was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
According to Martinez, the prosecutor offered him a plea deal of eight years if he cooperated by identifying and testifying against his supplier, which he rejected. Three days later, a superseding indictment was brought against Martinez, charging continuing criminal enterprise and increasing the alleged amount of cocaine the drug ring had
All of his co-defendants have been out of prison for more than a 14 years. A strict federal statute enacted since Martinez was sentenced, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, bars him from appealing his case and taking advantage of a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the mandatory nature of the sentencing guidelines used against him.
Martinez says it has been particularly difficult to be separated from his two sons, Edwin and Julian, who were ages three and four when he was incarcerated. When asked about his sons he becomes too emotional to speak, so he wrote to the ACLU, “No words could ever fully describe the pain within when you know that you will never spend any type of quality time with your children, for the rest of their lives. I wish that on no parent.”
Martinez says he talks with his sons and granddaughter about once a week, but he is not able to see them as often as he would like, as he is incarcerated about nine hours away from them.
While in prison Martinez, has earned his GED and completed close to 200 Federa System programs, including a 500-hour drug treatment program, Alcoholics Anonymous, parenting classes, a web design class, and other educational classes. Although he had never read a book before he was incarcerated, he is now an avid reader. He has been imprisoned in federal prisons in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Kentucky, where he is currently incarcerated
Read full story at ACLU Special Report. A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses.
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As voters, citizens, taxpayers and bystanders, we as a society have inhumanely punished thousands of nonviolent people. Currently Washington DC and 30 states have compensation statutes for wrongfully convicted inmates. Congress’ recommended amount is $63,000 for each year served. On the other hand, overly sentenced victims who in many cases have suffered equally or worse typically receive $20 and a bus ticket if they are fortunate enough to ever be released.
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