EVERETT — Last week, the Washington State Court of Appeals rejected the state’s appeal of a Snohomish County Superior Court jury’s verdict that the state must pay $3 million to a woman alleging officials failed to step in when a former Monroe police officer sexually abused her as a child.
In the early 2000s, the victim met former Monroe police Sgt. Carlos Martinez, through a Monroe school’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, also known as DARE, according to court documents.
Martinez later hired the victim, who was around 13 years old at the time, as a babysitter for his two kids. When she was around 14, he began sexually assaulting her, a complaint filed in 2019 alleged.
Martinez set up video cameras in his home and recorded the victim showering, court documents said.
Martinez was accused of grooming and molesting the victim, with Martinez contending that sexual contact didn’t begin until she turned 18, according to previous reporting by The Daily Herald. At that time, she was a high school senior while he was 52 and married, a previous article reported. In 2009, the victim moved to Texas to live with Martinez as his girlfriend.
In 2011, the victim reported Martinez’s behavior to law enforcement in Texas, and four years later, a Snohomish County Superior Court jury convicted Martinez of felony sex crimes. A judge sentenced him to 14 months in prison. In 2018, an appellate court denied his appeal.
The 2019 complaint alleged a state Department of Social and Health Services employee knew of the abuse but failed to report it due to her own romantic relationship with Martinez. When the employee questioned the victim about the abuse, she didn’t deny it, court documents said.
Among the parties listed in the complaint were the Monroe School District and the DSHS, including the various agenciesutilized by the department to care for children.
When a Monroe School District employee learned of the abuse, they failed to investigate or report the claim, the complaint alleged. The school district employee allegedly said the victim was “crying wolf.”
In February 2023, the state asked the judge to dismiss the negligence claims, stating the Department of Children, Youth, and Families should not be liable for “employees’ actions or inactions outside of the scope of their duties,” court documents said.
When a DSHS or DCYF employee “has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department,” according to state law.
The victim’s attorney, Raymond Dearie of Dearie Law Group, said the employee met with the Monroe school counselor during work hours to discuss the abuse, a previous article reported. Superior Court Judge Cindy Larsen denied the state’s requests, but she noted the arguments about the state’s liability are “fairly tenuous.”
In November 2023, the jury faulted the DCYF but did not find that the Monroe School District was negligent, court documents said. The jury awarded the victim $1,750,000 for past damages and $1,250,000 for future damages.
The state appealed the decision, arguing the victim failed to prove causation and the court should not have allowed the jury to decide the case, according to a Dearie Law Group press release.
As of Tuesday, the DCYF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The victim’s legal team found the state’s decision to appeal surprising, Dearie said in the release.
“When the jury foreperson read the verdict, we believed we could finally tell [the victim] that the years of stress and the pain of revisiting the abuse were over,” Dearie said in the release. “Instead, we had to explain that the State rejected a verdict the jury reached after careful consideration. That was a difficult conversation.”
The Court of Appeals Division 1 rejected the state’s arguments in an unpublished opinion submitted Feb. 2. An unpublished opinion is an opinion with no precedential value and is not binding on any court. The opinion stated that the victim presented “substantial evidence establishing causation,” therefore, the trial court was not wrong in allowing the jury to decide the case, court documents said.
The victim, now in her 30s, said in the release that the years of litigation “were exhausting,” but Dearie and his firm stood by her.
“This was a horrible chapter of my life, and its impact did not end when the abuse stopped,” she said in the release.
Jenna Millikan: 425-339-3035; jenna.millikan@heraldnet.com; X: @JennaMillikan
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