Man arrested on 1982 warrant, then mistakenly released

Published 10:51 pm Tuesday, February 5, 2008

TACOMA — Authorities caught up to Omar Lewis Martin last week, 25 years after he failed to make a court date and was branded a fugitive. They might wish they hadn’t bothered.

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies spent Monday tracking down Martin — again — after learning from The News Tribune that county jailers mistakenly turned him loose less than a day after he was booked on a 1982 arrest warrant.

The 67-year-old man spent the weekend free in spite of Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant’s order Friday that he be held in jail without bail until his Feb. 14 sentencing.

Deputy prosecutor Jesse Williams requested the no-bail hold, arguing that Martin couldn’t be trusted to appear given his history.

Convicted of incest in June 1982, he was released on his own recognizance, pending sentencing. He failed to show up for his September sentencing date, and an arrest warrant was issued, according to court records.

Grant agreed that Martin should be held without bail and signed an order to that effect. “Defendant is to be held in custody without bail (no bail hold),” the order states.

Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said Monday that corrections officers apparently misread Grant’s order, thinking she’d ruled Martin could be released without posting bail.

Jailers let him out at 7 p.m. Friday, less than 24 hours after he was arrested on the 1982 warrant.

Authorities did not know about the error until notified Monday morning by The News Tribune, Troyer said.

“We messed up,” he said.

Made aware of the foul-up, deputies arrested Martin again Monday at the address where they found him last week during a multiple-agency warrants sweep, Troyer said. He surrendered without incident and was rebooked into the jail.

Troyer said the jail is working to update its records systems to try to prevent such mistakes.

“Somewhere between court and the jail, they messed up his paperwork,” Troyer said.

Martin also is causing a bit of a headache for the prosecuting attorney’s office. Deputy prosecutor Mary Robnett is trying to find another jurisdiction to take over the case because the attorney who represented Martin in his 1982 incest case was Gerald Horne. A public defender back then, Horne today is Pierce County’s elected prosecuting attorney, which sets up a conflict of interest for his deputies.

Robnett said she’s contacted the state Attorney General’s Office about handling Martin’s sentencing. She hadn’t received a definitive answer Monday but was confident that office would take the case.

It seems a lot of fuss for a low-level sex offender who, according to court records, was facing a sentence of two days in jail and some counseling before he absconded from the law.

“It’s really a run-of-the-mill case,” said Robnett, who supervises the prosecution of sex crime cases.

It was — until Martin failed to show up for his sentencing for reasons that remained unclear Monday.

Paperwork in his file indicates Horne told the judge in September 1982 that Martin — who pleaded guilty to molesting a female relative — was afraid of something.

“Mr. Horne advises the court of his fears and that of his client,” according to a document filed on the day Martin was to be sentenced.

Horne was out of the office Monday.

It also could not be determined how Martin spent the last 25 years. Public records list addresses for him in Tacoma and his hometown, Huntington, W.Va..

Martin worked intermittently as an electrical system designer before his arrest, according to court records, but he was unemployed in June 1982 when his victim reported his abuse to authorities.