County Will Not Prosecute Rep. Martinez

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office Monday declined to prosecute Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) in connection with a traffic accident earlier this month, saying that blood tests disclosed he was not legally intoxicated at the time of the mishap.

Montebello police arrested Martinez on suspicion of drunk driving after the Nov. 8 incident in which his car smashed into the rear of one car and then struck another, injuring him and the two other drivers.

Martinez denied being intoxicated, and later issued a statement through his Washington office in which he said he had fallen asleep at the wheel coming home from a retirement dinner for a union official.

He was released on his own recognizance after submitting to a blood test.

Deputy Dist. Atty. George Knoke said the decision not to file charges in the case came when his office learned that the test had showed a blood alcohol reading of .07%--well below the .10% legal intoxication standard--and was found to contain no evidence of other drugs or narcotics.

“The policy of this office,” Knoke said, “is that if a blood alcohol reading is between .05% and .10% prosecution should be declined, unless there are very strong objective symptoms of intoxication such as very erratic driving or very poor performance in a field sobriety test. These conditions do not exist in this case.”