Surveillance video<\/a> captured the encounter. According to investigators, Martinez began playing soccer with the child and even offered to buy him a toy in order to gain his trust before taking him away.<\/p>\nAt the time, the boy described the moment he agreed to go with Martinez to NBC6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came up to me and said, ‘Do you want to come with me?’ And I said, sure,\u201d Rivera told NBC6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authorities said the child was taken from the area but was later found safe more than a mile away after his older brother pulled him away to safety. Martinez has remained in jail since his arrest.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA man is facing charges after police said he kidnapped a 6-year-old boy as he was playing soccer in his front yard in northwest Miami-Dade over the weekend. NBC6’s Lena Salzbank reports\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
3 years in prison\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, nearly two years later, Martinez accepted a plea deal offered by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which includes three years in state prison followed by 10 years of probation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During a court hearing, Martinez pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and one count of interference with custody of a child.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martinez must also complete a mental health and substance abuse evaluation and get treatment, if needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Child’s family wanted more prison time<\/p>\n
The child\u2019s grandmother, Aurora Velasquez, said she strongly disagrees with the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, the State Attorney\u2019s Office did not do a good job,\u201d Velasquez said.<\/p>\n
Velasquez said she learned about the plea deal through NBC6 and claims prosecutors never informed the family beforehand. She said they would have wanted Martinez to face a longer prison sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are they going to let that man back out on the street?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alfredo Velasquez, the child’s cousin who had been in contact with prosecutors since the incident, told NBC6 the family was not given a heads-up about the time they were offering or that the deal would be accepted Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He should just be in state prison for all his life because these are children,” he said. “We should set an example to this person that has done this to a child and done to this family. I don\u2019t agree with their decision.”<\/p>\n
Why 3 years in prison?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response to the family’s claims, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office told NBC6 that the plea had been consulted with the family, and there was no indication of having an issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a close-out memo provided to NBC6, Assistant State Attorney Lily Wisset explained her office extended a plea offer because the state would have had “significant challenges in proving to a jury” some of the elements of kidnapping beyond a reasonable doubt. Including “that the Defendant forcibly or secretly took the victim” and “that the Defendant intended to commit a felony or terrorize the victim.”<\/p>\n
The prosecutor added that Martinez provided a psychosexual evaluation and risk assessment, “which concluded that the Defendant did not exhibit sexual interest in children, or any other psychosexual disorders.”<\/p>\n
On Friday, Martinez accepted the offer and was ordered to stay away from Rivera once he gets out of prison.<\/p>\n
However, because of this conviction, Martinez, who is not a U.S citizen, could face deportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I want him to get deported,” Aurora Velasquez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Florida family says they are outraged after learning the man now convicted of kidnapping their 6-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,2033],"class_list":{"0":"post-181342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-miami","9":"tag-miami-headlines","10":"tag-miami-news","11":"tag-only-on-6"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}