NYPD Cop Guilty In Child Porn, Sexual Exploitation Trial: Feds

NEW YORK CITY — An NYPD officer who authorities said had live video sex chats with vulnerable children — including a past victim of sexual abuse — will spend at least 15 years behind bars.

Timothy Martinez, 43, was found guilty Wednesday on child pornography and sexual exploitation charges.

Jurors convicted Martinez after a weeklong federal trial in which prosecutors laid out the case that he specifically targeted vulnerable children who he believed had been sexually abused, said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

"Instead of using his position as a member of the NYPD to protect children, he shamefully gained the trust of minors in order to sexually exploit them,” Peace said in a statement.

Authorities arrested Martinez in 2020 after federal investigators found evidence he paid a Twitter user who had claimed to be under the age of 18 for child pornography, the Staten Island Advance first reported.

A search of Martinez's Staten Island home uncovered a laptop teeming with hundreds of images of child pornography, according to the report.

Martinez at the time had been with the NYPD since 2006 and was on active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, according to records and prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors charged Martinez with possession of child pornography, attempted receipt of child pornography and two counts of sexual exploitation and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor.

Martinez starting in 2012 had engaged in live video sex chats with a young girl, which he continued even after she told him she had been sexually abused by family members, prosecutors said. He also had video sex chats with another underage girl who had been treated for a brain tumor, authorities said.

During Martinez's trial last week, jurors heard a recording in which he could be heard admitting to federal investigators that he paid a young girl on Twitter for a sex video, the New York Post reported. He told the investigator that he didn't know she was underage, and his attorneys argued the child pornography on his laptop had been left by other soldiers he served with overseas, according to the report.

Martinez starting in 2012 had engaged in live video sex chats with a young girl, which he continued even after she told him she had been sexually abused by family members, prosecutors said. He also had video sex chats with another underage girl who had been treated for a brain tumor, authorities said.

A sentencing hearing is schedule for September. Martinez faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison.