Rebecca Martin, who has a long list of criminal charges related to her involvement in the drug business, was back in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday where she entered a guilty plea in three active cases. Martin was sentenced to 20 years probation, and the state’s request to seize her home along County Road 30 was approved.
One of the charges against the 53-year-old Martin is she has maintained a drug premises at her residence. According to the probable cause affidavit in one of the cases, investigators alleged drug-related activity had taken place at the residence for nearly two decades.
According to electronic records maintained by the Baxter County Assessor’s office, the home is listed as a 1,200-square-foot structure. It is described in other court records as a two-story log house located at the end of a circular driveway. Allegedly, Martin used the proceeds of lottery winnings to retire the debt on the house the state has now been authorized to seize.
During the sentencing process, Circuit Judge John Putman asked Martin if she had operated a drug premises at her home as charged. She hesitated, then said, “I hate to ….” She paused again and then answered “yes sir” to the question.
Judge Putman said he did not want the outcome of the Martin case to “appear someone is buying her way out of incarceration” and asked 14th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge to outline the reasons leading to the sentencing recommendation. Ethredge said he had been involved with investigators and Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery in reviewing the evidence the state could present at trial, as well as the ways and means the evidence had been gathered. The prosecutor said those involved in the review concluded there could be problems in proving many of the charges against Martin at trial.
Ethredge said while Martin was on probation the next two decades, “It will be possible to monitor her activities and see that this doesn’t happen again.”
Prosecutors have been already been hampered in attempts to bring some of Martin’s past cases to court. The cases were deemed unwinnable and charges dismissed in them after courts ruled evidence was illegally gathered by investigators. The court ruled due to various defects in the affidavits on which the search warrants were based, the evidence gathered as a result of the faulty warrants could not be used against Martin.
Mountain Home attorney Norman Wilber represented Martin in the evidence suppression hearings. In his brief supporting the motion to suppress evidence gathered during a March 25th, 2015 search of Martin’s home, Wilber wrote investigators “should be forced to put forth the effort” to comply with rules governing the preparation of affidavits seeking search warrants.
If lessons regarding those rules are not learned, Wilber told the court, investigators would continue to put unwinnable cases in the hands of prosecutors, since the state could not proceed where critical evidence is thrown out.
One of the active cases against Martin was dismissed by the state as part of the plea agreement Thursday.
Martin’s court records contain information concerning a number of controlled drug buys, many of which were made at her residence on County Road 30.
In early May last year, for example, police used a confidential informant to purchase approximately 26 grams of methamphetamine from Martin. It was reported at least three other “customers” were present at the time. They had reportedly given Martin “front money” so she could make a bulk drug buy in Tulsa, Oklahoma and were there to collect the “product.”
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI