A Las Vegas teen has been jailed for up to 40 years in jail for a savage attack on his teacher where he raped and strangled her before trying to slash her wrists.
Jonathan Martinez-Garcia, 17, was seen smiling during his sentencing Thursday as the court heard in harrowing detail how he ambushed the teacher by asking if he could speak about his grades after class at El Dorado High School.
Martinez-Garcia waited until her back was turned before trying to choke her with a ‘rope or string’. He then slammed her head against a table, knocking her unconscious.
When the victim awoke, her pants and underwear had been pulled down. Martinez-Garcia poured something over her saying he was going to set her on fire and then pushed a bookshelf onto the woman which he then sat on.
The victim, identified only as Sade, told the judge that she believed she was going to die during the horrific attack which left her covered in bruises. Sade told the sentencing hearing, she has been ‘imprisoned’ mentally and physically.
Jonathan Martinez Garcia pled guilty on Wednesday at the Regional Justice Center to attempted murder, attempted sexual assault, and battery with use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm that left his victim with trauma and multiple injuries
The victim (pictured) identified as Sade told the court, said ‘he beat my body so badly that I couldn’t fight’
‘It only makes sense that he too should be in prison for as long as possible,’ she said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Garcia was sentenced at Vegas’ Regional Justice Center after pleading guilty to attempted murder, attempted sexual assault, and battery with use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm that left his victim with trauma and mutliple injuries.
Clark County District Court Judge Kathleen Delaney, sentenced Martinez-Garcia to a minimum of 16 years behind bars, rising to a maximum term of 40 years, the Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors asked the judge that for a minimum of 22 to 55 years behind bars. But in her sentencing, Judge Delaney said she was ‘balancing the seriousness of the crime with other factors’.
The brutal attack occurred after Garcia went to his teacher’s classroom after school hours to discuss his grades. Police said he locked the classroom door before he viciously beat her.
Images of some of the injuries she sustained were shown in the courtroom.
The victim told the court, ‘he beat my body so badly that I couldn’t fight.’
‘One of the times I woke, I found myself trapped under heavy shelves that he toppled over me to where my breathing was suppressed, and I was being crushed to near death,’ she recalled.
‘I truly believed with everything in me that I was going to die right there under those shelves.’
Garcia fled after the attack and took the teacher’s keys. The instructor was later found by a school employee who called 911.
Garcia was arrested shortly after by school police while he was on his way to an award ceremony at the school.
His mother described him as a ‘good student.’ She said he hadn’t been diagnosed with any medical or mental disabilities,’ but told police that he seemed ‘depressed and disconnected’ in recent months.
A close-up of some of the bruising the teacher sustained from the violent April 7, 2022 attack
A photo of El Dorado High School located in downtown Las Vegas where Sade worked as an educator and where Garcia was a student
In the arrest report Garcia talks about the attack on his teacher with detectives.
He said: ‘I don’t know why I attacked her, she was good to me.’
Garcia pictured (far right) with his family. His mother described him as a ‘good student.’ She said he hadn’t been diagnosed with any medical or mental disabilities,’ but told police that he seemed ‘depressed and disconnected’ in recent months
During the sentencing, prosecutors said that the teacher remembers Garcia saying repeatedly: ‘Why won’t you die?’
Sade told the judge that she did not return to her teaching job after the attack because she felt mentally and physically ‘imprisoned,’ AP reported.
The Judge said that such an attack on a teacher was totally unacceptable.
She said: ‘It is the most heinous type of crime there could be.’
Ahead of the sentencing, Garcia’s public defender, Ty Gaston, argued that his behavior was caused by severe side effects of an asthma medication, Singulair, which caused mood changes, night terrors and hallucinations.
Singulair manufacturer, Merck, is facing a slew of lawsuits that allege the company coovered up links between its asthma drug and the severe effects on patients’ mental health.
In April, Garcia got a plea deal that avoided trial in the after school attack after he pled guilty to attempted sexual assault and battery with use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm.
Other charges against him were also dropped, The Associated Press reported.
At the sentencing, Garcia- Martinez dressed in navy blue prison clothes apologized and said he regretted what he had done.
He told the courtroom he blames no one but himself and said that he was ready to ‘accept the consequences,’ KSNV reported.
His lawyer Gaston said Garcia’s erratic behavior were side effects of an asthma medication he was on that caused hallucinations, mood changes, and night terrors, the Review-Journal reported.
Gaston said: ‘He was no history of anything but being a perfect loving kid.’
