GALLATIN/FRANKLIN COs.—Despite what at times appeared to be desperate pleas on the parts of members of the family, his attorney, and the man himself, former Gallatin County sheriff Raymond Martin could not overcome the evidence against him dating back several years as well as some that was very recent, and it all added up to another sentence of life in a federal penitentiary on December 7, 2012.
The sentence was not unexpected, in light of what occurred on October 30: When Martin was moved into a federal holding cell at the Williamson County Detention Center in Marion to await his resentencing (originally scheduled for November 29; generally speaking, the feds try to have a person back to the area of the federal court at least 30 days before any scheduled court activity), a shake-down of the cell occurred about ten minutes after Martin was placed in it, and the shake-down produced contraband: Court documents showed that on a bunk under Martin’s toothpaste, officers located two and a half prescription-type pills. Hidden behind a roll of toilet paper, officers found a plastic bag containing 21 more prescription-type pills and approximately eight grams of a white powder. The white powder was separately field tested by both jail officials and Illinois State Police Inspector Glenn Rountree and it tested positive for the presence of cocaine.
Some of the pills were readily identifiable without lab testing, and belonged to Martin as prescribed medication; in any event, federal inmates are not allowed to possess any type of medication; rather, they are required to take individual doses of the medication in the presence of medical staff, and of course, cocaine is a federal felony if possessed by an inmate of a federal penitentiary.
Martin admitted to jail officials that the substances found in the cell belonged to him.
Federal court officials (namely, U.S. Assistant Attorney James Cutchin) used this, and more, as the basis for asking for as strict a sentence as federal Judge J. Phil Gilbert had issued on January 19, 2011: Life in prison without possibility of parole.
The history
Martin had been caught up in a federal operation in late 2008 when a local man, Jeremy Potts, had been recruited by Martin to sell pot for the sheriff, then in his fear of being harmed, contacted federal authorities, who moved in and captured much of the activity on film for several months before arresting Martin at the sheriff’s department May 18, 2009.
While Martin was incarcerated in federal holding at the Jackson County Jail in Murphysboro, he hatched a plan with his then-wife Kristina (Tina) Naas Martin and his son, Cody, then only 20 years of age, to kill Potts as well as another pot seller for Martin, David Woods. Martin attempted to involve two men incarcerated for local infractions in Murphysboro. This plan was discovered and the three were arrested in early January 2010, Martin arrested in the Jackson County Jail itself.
Martin was charged with a total of 15 federal counts when he went to trial in September 2010: Three counts of Distribution of Marijuana; two counts of Carrying a Firearm During and in Relation to a Drug Trafficking Crime; a count of Conspiracy to Distribute and Possess With Intent to Distribute Marijuana; three counts of Witness Tampering by Attempting to Use Physical Force; three counts of Witness Tampering by Attempting to Intimidate, Threaten and Corruptly Persuade a Witness Not to Testify; three counts of Conspiracy to Tamper With Witnesses by Intimidation, Threats, and Corrupt Persuasion; and a count of Attempted Structuring of Financial Transactions.
Throughout a two-week trial in September 2010, damning evidence was presented, and a federal jury found Martin guilty on all counts.
During his sentencing, the judge told Martin that he, as a law enforcement officer, was held to a higher standard than others who committed similar crimes. It was primarily that fact, and that Martin had involved his son in several of his crimes, that prompted the judge to order five years imprisonment on each count except 4 and 5, Carrying a Firearm During and In Relation to a Drug Trafficking Crime.
On each of those, Gilbert sentenced Martin to life in prison.
First right to appeal
Martin exercised his right to an appeal of his sentence, and in September of 2011, he received it on a very minor technical point: sentencing guidelines and the wording the judge used when he issued the life sentence, basically boiling down to “statutory” and “guideline/advisory.”
The federal appeals court (based in Chicago) ordered the sentence remanded back to the Southern District Court for resentencing, hence the reason Martin was brought back to Illinois.
He was given an opportunity to present witnesses, and to make a statement himself, as well as to have his court-appointed attorney, John O’Gara of Belleville, issue a plea of leniency as well.
Martin’s six sisters, as well as other family members, were in attendance at the December 7 court date in Benton at the federal courthouse.
Others were present as well, including residents of Gallatin County (who will remain unidentified) who had known for years of Martin’s activities that brought all of them together in the same imposing place.
The haggard former sheriff
Many in the courtroom gave visible and audible expressions of surprise, however, when Martin was brought in to the courtroom in prison orange and wrist and leg shackles.
Martin looked nothing like the man who sat through two weeks of testimony in September 2010, nor even as he did in January 2011 for sentencing.
Martin appeared at least 30 pounds lighter, his hair close-shaven and gray, his skin ashen, cheeks sunken, and eyes hollow. Two and a half years of imprisonment had taken an extreme toll on the man.
He sat through Cutchin reiterating the seriousness of his offenses and the level of criminality that the contraband in his Williamson County cell reached.
Cutchin also explained the false positive test the powder came back reading for cocaine, and that the powder was nothing more than a busted pill. Among the pills were found to be Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Mirtazapine and Remeron.
He reiterated many of the activities Martin hadn’t been charged with but that were read over in the sentencing phase in 2011, including alleged vote fraud in Gallatin County, gambling on the outcome of elections (while in office, and including his own office of sheriff), theft of county funds, and extortion using his office.
Cutchin asked for the same sentence that had been issued in January 2011.
Sisters testify
His family, however, didn’t see it that way.
Two of his sisters, Patricia Ann Brazier and Wanda Rexing, each gave impassioned pleas to the judge to go lenient on their little brother and let him go with time served.
Each of them delivered prepared statements through tears and at times sobs, and through these statements, those listening got a glimpse of the reasoning Martin operated under for so many years that made what he was doing “alright”—he had grown up poor and deprived, and he filched county funds, sold pot and allowed meth makers free reign to develop their product as long as they stayed out of his pot territory in order to “get ahead” in life and hedge against hard times the likes of which he experienced as a child.
At times, both women’s statements were a little extreme and over-the-top. Brazier delivered what turned out to be Biblical references to “productive vine and good fruit,” but it may have been more understandable if she’d actually cited chapter and verse; out of that context, it seemed somewhat lacking in intent.
Somewhat bizarre analogies
Rexing’s statements were even more difficult to follow, beginning with the ages of Martin’s parents when he was born (his father was 74, his mother 33) and continuing with reference to the streets of Shawneetown 50 years ago being “meaner than the meanest streets of New York City,” hyperbole that didn’t match up with what people actually knew about rural southern Illinois, despite the reputation Shawneetown has always had; and concluding with references to the television show “Touched by an Angel” and analogies in commercials for Beano and sunblock.
Throughout this history of Martin’s growth and development into the adult he eventually became, there was no mention of the former sheriff Glen McCabe having taken Martin under his wing so he could learn how to cultivate good Vietnamese cannabis in the rich volcanic Gallatin County soil; of how Martin and John Robinson made trips to see the Latin Kings in Chicago to keep the pot flowing when the crops weren’t good; no mention of how Martin told David Duffy that Duffy could keep on making meth as long as his meth making didn’t interfere with Ray’s pot business. Just that the family “was so poor” and “that’s why Ray hoarded and was always careful with everything he had.”
Survival instinct & ‘keistering in’ the pills
The sisters even excused Martin’s possession of the pills as his “survival instinct” and that he was “hoarding them for future use.”
When Martin actually had his time in front of the judge, he was asked by Gilbert how Martin got the drugs.
“From other inmates I came in contact with on my way en route to Williamson County,” Martin answered.
The judge leaned over the bench.
“But how did the drugs get in your cell?” Gilbert asked.
Martin fidgeted.
“Well…” he said. “I mean, do you want me to tell you here, with my family…?”
“Well, I mean, did you keister em in??” Gilbert asked, not laughing and not even smiling at the prospect that the pills, wrapped in plastic or cellophane packaging, could have been brought in by Martin placing them far up into his rectum…which might explain his hesitancy at telling such a thing in front of his older sisters.
“I’d just rather not say,” Martin answered, effectively ruining any possibility he might have had at swaying the judge to reduce his sentence even by a little….because Gilbert had an opportunity to learn how inmates in his own prison system were able to get drugs to other inmates and other facilities, yet Martin refused to even come off that information.
Prison: Great place to be a bum
Martin’s plea was as impassioned as his sisters’: he spoke of how being in the federal pen created a lazy person, where he could “stay in bed til noon, have lunch, play cards, watch TV, go to the rec yard, have dinner, watch TV, and play cards some more.
“Prison is a great place to learn how to be a bum,” Martin told Gilbert. “But I’m not a bum. I want to work, and provide for my kids.”
It was in fact Martin’s three kids (and his two ex-stepsons, Tina’s boys, who are no longer with Martin’s family now that Tina is divorced from the former sheriff) that he used as his focal point in begging Gilbert to give him “time served” so Martin could “dance at my daughter’s wedding” (his daughter, Megan, is currently 16 and has no current plans to marry.)
Judge was not swayed
Gilbert, however, used what Martin did to his son Cody, now a felon, as reasoning for no leniency whatsoever.
As before when the judge told Martin that he believed animals provided for their young better than Martin treated Cody, this time Gilbert berated Martin for ever involving his son in the crimes of tampering with the federal witnesses, Potts and Woods.
He also berated him for being in a position of trust and abusing that trust.
“Other than murder,” Gilbert said, “this is one of the most severe cases of criminality I’ve ever seen. Anything less than life is not appropriate.”
And with that, Martin was sentenced to the exact same time as January 2011: two life sentences on Counts 4 and 5, and five years each on all the others.
Martin was advised he had ten days to appeal the sentence.
As of Sunday, December 16, there was no appeal on file through the federal court system.