Man Who Shot Wife in Front of Son Sentenced : Court: Steve Moon Martinez is given 30 years to life in prison. He committed the crime days after being served with divorce papers.

A Harbor City man who clipped off his court-imposed electronic monitoring anklet, then tracked down his estranged wife in Carson and shot her to death has been sentenced to a prison term of 30 years to life.

In a tense courtroom session Tuesday at which family members of both the convicted man, Steve Moon Martinez, and the victim, Nikki Martinez, warily eyed one another, Compton Superior Court Judge John Cheroske imposed a sentence that was one year short of the maximum.

Steve Martinez, who turns 29 next week, probably will serve at least 25 years before he is eligible for parole, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Georgia Sullivan. But Nikki Martinez’s mother, Carol Tweedt, said that unless she could have her daughter back, she will never be fully satisfied.

“Nothing has changed,” she said after the sentencing.

Family members of Nikki Martinez said they will ask the parole board to keep Martinez in prison for as long as possible.

“If and when he comes up for parole, we ask that the parole board . . . consider the pain this man has caused and is still causing our family and please keep in mind the extremity of his crimes against us, against my sister and against society as a whole,” Laura Rodriguez, 26, Nikki Martinez’s only sister, told Cheroske on behalf of the family.

Steve Martinez showed no emotion as the judge handed down his sentence, but his lawyer, Henry Salcido, said he will appeal the verdict and sentence.

Martinez was convicted May 5 of first-degree murder and lesser charges in the shooting death Oct. 6, 1991, of his 26-year-old wife, who had served him with divorce papers five days before. He surrendered to police the following day.

Martinez had been serving a 90-day house arrest sentence in an unrelated incident for shooting a firearm 12 times in the air. As a condition of his probation, he was ordered to wear an electronic surveillance anklet.

But, Sullivan said, Martinez cut off the anklet and drove four miles to Carson, where he shot his wife four times in the head in front of their 3-year-old son and a friend of the victim’s. Neither the boy, who now lives with the Tweedts in Riverside County, nor the friend was wounded.

Rodriguez, however, said her nephew has been receiving therapy to cope with the fact that his father killed his mother.

The boy “is the biggest victim in this tragedy,” Rodriguez said. “This child will grow up without a mother or a father.”

“Having Nikki taken from us so suddenly and violently has almost destroyed our family. Only our strength and love for one another and for (Nikki Martinez’s son) has kept us together,” Rodriguez added. “Nikki was my parents’ first-born child. She was very close to my mother and they shared a special bond. Nikki was my only sister, and she was my best friend. Losing her from my life has been extremely painful and devastating to me. The void left in the lives of her entire family can never be filled, and the wounds will never heal.”

The families of Steve and Nikki Martinez continue to squabble. Relatives of Nikki Martinez were escorted from the courthouse by security guards, and Steve Martinez’s family repeatedly has lashed out at them and the justice system for what they view as an unfair trial.

Salcido, whose motion for a new trial was denied by Cheroske, said Martinez will appeal the verdict chiefly because the judge did not allow testimony from a psychiatrist who contends that Martinez suffered mental and emotional problems stemming from drug abuse and childhood problems.

Although Salcido said there is no doubt that Steve Martinez committed the crime, he believes it was done in the heat of passion and that the psychiatrist’s testimony could have proved it. That could have led to a conviction on a lesser degree of murder, Salcido said.

“The court effectively gutted our defense,” he said.

Steve Martinez’s mother, Margarita Gomez, said: “He did take a life and he should be punished, but not life in prison. He should have got maybe 15 years. He did turn himself in.”