Friends Ask Leniency as Martinez Steps Down

It’s when a city councilman is about to be sentenced for improprieties in office that he finds out who his true friends are.

For former San Diego City Councilman Uvaldo Martinez--his resignation took effect at midnight--the roster includes a council colleague, a Municipal Court judge, a land-use lawyer, a developer, a priest, a retired house painter and one of the female dining partners who figured in his downfall.

Martinez, scheduled to be sentenced this morning on two felony counts of misusing a city credit card, on Wednesday submitted letters to Superior Court Judge Barbara Gamer from City Councilman Bill Cleator, Municipal Judge Rafael A. Arreola and 17 others to support his plea for lenient treatment.

The letters accompanied a nine-page memorandum from defense attorney Raymond J. Coughlan arguing that Martinez’s sole punishment should be 400 hours of volunteer work and the payment of $316.25 to the city in restitution for some of his credit card charges.

The recommendation runs counter to a probation officer’s finding that Martinez should be sentenced to perform 200 hours of volunteer work and 20 hours of public service, such as work on a street cleaning crew. The probation report also recommends that Martinez should be required to pay restitution of about $600.

Coughlan contends in the document that Martinez would be subjected to undue humiliation if he was ordered to do the public service work.

“The specter of Mr. Martinez sweeping the streets or picking up trash along I-5 raises the issue of further media attention,” Coughlan said. “There can be no question but that the media will descend upon Mr. Martinez if he is placed in such a public place under such circumstances. Not only would that cause further humiliation to him, but it would serve a destructive purpose in any efforts to get work done.”

Coughlan suggests that Martinez be assigned to do volunteer work at Barrio Station, a Logan Heights nonprofit organization of which he is a former director.

According to Coughlan, Barrio Station’s top officer, Rachel Ortiz, wants Martinez to work in a relocation program, using his knowledge of city procedures to help monitor eminent domain proceedings, ensure that residents get new homes and job training, and persuade businesses to move into the barrio.

Martinez pleaded guilty last month to felony charges of misappropriating and falsely accounting for public funds--two of the 24 counts on which he faced trial following a lengthy grand jury investigation of his use of a city credit card.

In the year ending June 30, 1985, Martinez and his top aide charged $9,500 in meals and drinks to taxpayers--more than the combined spending by all the other council members and aides who carried city credit cards. Had the case gone to trial, he would have had to answer charges of illegally using his city Visa card to buy $1,840 worth of meals and drinks on 20 occasions between November, 1984, and June, 1985.

Coughlan argues in his memorandum that much of the evidence prosecutors used against Martinez came from a lengthy report the ex-councilman himself turned over to the district attorney’s office.

That cooperation--along with Martinez’s bootstraps efforts to improve himself over a lifetime in San Diego, his family’s dependence upon him and his “exemplary” professional career--all mitigate against any jail time, Coughlan contends.

The letters from friends, co-workers and constituents--some solicited by Coughlan, others offered voluntarily--aim to bolster the plea for leniency.

Cleator noted in his letter that he has been the City Council’s most outspoken foe of city-issued credit cards, seeking their ban as far back as 1981. Other city officials went unpunished for similar abuses, he said, and “lax enforcement” contributed to “careless attitudes” about accounting for credit card expenditures.

“Uvaldo’s mistake was to treat a method for legitimate reimbursement of expenses as a perquisite of the office,” Cleator wrote. “I believe that he didn’t realize, at the time, the serious nature of his actions or the potential consequences.”

Cleator asked Gamer “to be as lenient as possible.” Martinez, he said, “has paid dearly for his transgressions.”

The letter added: “For all the good things he’s done for his community and the city at large, Uvaldo will most likely be only remembered for his mistake.”

Arreola’s letter, written “as a private citizen and longtime friend” of Martinez, said the ex-councilman worked “beyond the call of duty” on behalf of low-income persons and senior citizens.

The judge said he hoped Martinez “is found to be a suitable candidate for probation, perhaps given a reasonable fine, some community service and no custody.”

Land-use attorney Paul Peterson, who often appeared before Martinez on behalf of developers, said in his letter to Gamer that Martinez already “has suffered very substantially” for his conduct.

Peterson, who headed Martinez’s legal defense committee, wrote: “The humiliation that he has suffered in the community, the embarrassment to his family and the loss of his City Council position would ordinarily be considered to be severe enough punishment for the matters to which he pled guilty.”

Martinez’s meals with Jane Reid, one of his council aides, figured in five of the charges against him. Reid wrote to Gamer: “I have been impressed by his energy, intelligence and sense of duty to his constituency. Never did I see him avoid a responsibility or shirk a duty associated with his office.”

Not all the letters are from community movers and shakers. Coughlan passed along to Gamer a letter from Robert V. DePuy of Ramona, who identified himself as “a poor slob of a retired house painter.” The letter was sent to Martinez’s home and apparently included $25 for the councilman.

Wrote DePuy: “If all the politicians in this country who have committed an indiscretion no worse than yours were given the same punishment, there wouldn’t be enough left to staff the office of the dog catcher.”

Gamer is not bound by the probation report or any of the other recommendations.

Under terms of Martinez’s plea bargain with prosecutors, the judge could sentence the former councilman to as much as a year in jail and order him to pay a $20,000 fine. But Gamer indicated when she accepted Martinez’s guilty plea that she was not inclined to make custody part of her sentence.