A Brooklyn federal jury has convicted Timothy Martinez, a 43-year-old NYPD officer, on four charges related to child pornography and the sexual exploitation of minors. Martinez, a 17-year veteran of the NYPD, was found guilty of two counts of child sex exploitation, attempted receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
Martinez now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for September. He remains under home confinement as a condition of his bail.
According to Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, instead of using his position in the NYPD to protect children, Martinez gained the trust of minors to sexually exploit them. Martinez was arrested in 2020 after a search of his Staten Island home revealed a laptop containing child porn images and records of video chats with two underage girls.
Prosecutors alleged that Martinez had also reached out to a Twitter user he believed was an underage girl selling child pornography, and purchased explicit images. They further accused Martinez of chatting with the girls for years, convincing them to record themselves performing lewd acts. Both victims testified during the one-week trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Martinez’s defense attorney argued that his client was not behind the keyboard for the explicit chats, and did not download any of the child porn found on his laptop. Martinez had served in the Army Reserves and had taken the laptop with him to bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Romania, where he said he regularly allowed fellow service members to use it. The defense claimed that dozens, possibly hundreds of people, had access to the “general use laptop.”
Despite the guilty verdict, Martinez’s lawyer plans to challenge the conviction in motions before sentencing, citing a potential venue issue.