Martinez found guilty in Ottawa home invasion that involved gunshots

Three armed men broke into an Ottawa residence last fall during which gunshots were exchanged. Although none of the victims could identify the assailants, police determined Fernando Martinez was a suspect.

Martinez and his lawyer insisted Wednesday that there was no direct evidence linking Martinez to the Nov. 2 break-in. A La Salle County jury didn’t buy that. Now, Martinez faces up to 50 years when he stands for sentencing Dec. 13.

A La Salle County deliberated for a half-hour Wednesday and convicted Martinez of home invasion, a Class X felony. Although Martinez would ordinarily face six to 30 years in prison, he was on parole at the time of the break-in, and his use of a gun elevated his sentencing range to 26 to 50 years.

Martinez showed no reaction as the verdicts were read. He did, however, turn slightly to the spectator gallery and flash a consoling smile to two women who could be heard crying at the verdicts.

The investigation was launched early Nov. 2, 2023, when an Ottawa woman heard intruders enter her home in the 1100 block of Pine Street. Intruders entered her bedroom, and one put a gun to her head demanding the combination to the “big gun safe” in the bedroom. She said she didn’t know it, and the gunman struck her behind her left ear.

The woman was, however, able to send text messages to her live-in boyfriend, who raced home with two companions in tow. He entered the home with a .380 pistol and fired at one of the intruders.

None of the witnesses who testified this week could positively identify the intruders, forcing police and prosecutors to fall back on circumstantial evidence.

At the end of the three-day trial, Martinez and his lawyer Heidi Nelson argued that the evidence wasn’t enough to convict Martinez beyond a reasonable doubt. Nelson said the cops realistically needed eyewitnesses, blood, DNA and/or fingerprints and obtained none. Investigators never swabbed Martinez’s hands for gunshot residue, either.

“There’s been no weapon recovered and no match for the shell casings,” Nelson said. Even if jurors accepted some of the prosecutors’ premises, “the state still has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had a weapon and fired a weapon.”

But investigators had procured videos of Martinez that linked him to the break-in.

Shortly after the break-in, Martinez was found at Morris Hospital with a gunshot wound to his right arm below the elbow. He gave a Swiss-cheese story of how he’d been shot.

Martinez initially told a Grundy County sheriff’s deputy, whose body camera recorded everything, that he’d been shot at a house party in Mazon. Authorities were alerted to no such incident, and Martinez’s story fell apart. Cellphone data retrieved later showed that the woman who drove Martinez to the hospital did not enter Mazon.

“His first story is a lie,” prosecutor Matt Kidder said during closing arguments. “There’s no disputing it. And you have to ask yourself, ‘Why lie?’

“And the answer is because the truth is awful for him: He was in Ottawa committing a home invasion, and he got shot.”

Even more damaging was surveillance footage recorded hours after his discharge from Morris Hospital. Martinez spoke freely about an armed incident while gathered with friends at a south-side Ottawa residence.

Next door was a house fitted with surveillance cameras with audio. One camera was trained on a porch where Martinez stood. The camera was hot.

“Watch what the defendant has in his good hand,” prosecutor Jeremiah Adams told the jury as he played pertinent sections of footage from the hot mic. “And watch what he gives [a companion] along the way.”

The video showed Martinez handing off a pistol and a shopping bag to a cohort. Inside the bag was an Xbox video game console, and its serial number matched a console stolen from the Pine Street house.

Martinez could be heard laughing about his gunshot wound – “I didn’t even feel it when it hit me” – and while reenacting how he held the Ottawa woman at gunpoint and demanded she open the safe.

Lacking an alternative explanation for the gunshot – Nelson called no witnesses, and Martinez declined to take the stand – the jury apparently accepted evidence pointing to Martinez having been wounded at the scene of an armed home invasion.

Two related cases are pending. Michael Boaz of Ottawa is charged with home invasion and is set for trial later this month. Prosecutors also charged Kaylee Neitzel, who drove Martinez to the hospital, with felony obstructing justice for allegedly lying about where she picked up Martinez and trying to thwart the investigation.