ST. CROIX — With his sentencing a week away, former Virgin Islands Police Commissioner Ray Martinez filed two major legal motions Tuesday challenging nearly every aspect of the government’s recommended prison sentence for 24 to 30 years, requesting instead a sentence of five to six years, according to court filings.
The filings, a detailed objection to the presentence report and a sentencing memorandum, were submitted to U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney in St. Thomas. Together they represent Martinez’s most comprehensive legal argument since his December 2025 conviction on bribery, wire fraud, and obstruction charges tied to a $1.48 million government contract. Sentencing is scheduled for June 9.
The core of the defense argument is that the government’s presentence report — which calculated an advisory guidelines range of 24 years to 30 years and five months — rests on a loss figure that has almost no relationship to actual harm.
In its sentencing recommendation, the government noted that Martinez, as the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the Virgin Islands, orchestrated and led a bribery scheme in which he accepted roughly $100,000 in benefits and payments in exchange for using his position to influence government contracting decisions. The fraud was connected to vendor David Whitaker, a known felon whose former cybersecurity company Mon Ethos Pro Support received the $1.48 million federally funded contract. Whitaker testified against Martinez and co-defendant Jenifer O’Neal, former Office of Management and Budget director, as a government witness.
READ MORE: Prosecutors recommend 24 to 30 years in prison for Ray Martinez and seven years for Jenifer O’Neal
The probation office put the loss at $1.07 million, roughly equal to the total net income earned by Whitaker’s company during the period covered by the indictment. Martinez’s attorneys say that number is wrong as a matter of federal law.
Under a binding Third Circuit ruling known as United States v. Nagle, Martinez’s lawyers argue, loss in a government contracting case must equal the amount the government paid minus the fair market value of services actually received — not the contractor’s total net income. The defense points to testimony from Whitaker, who confirmed at trial that Mon Ethos did in fact perform cybersecurity work, including forensic services, GPS training, thermal imaging, and other services under the contract.
By that measure, the defense contends, the only provable loss consists of two specific invoice inflations: $40,000 added to an October 2023 invoice, and $70,000 added to a January 2024 invoice — amounts the government itself described in exactly those terms during closing arguments at trial. Total actual loss: $110,000, yielding a guidelines enhancement of plus-8, not the plus-14 the presentence report applied.
The defense leans heavily on what it calls an irreconcilable internal contradiction in the government’s own filings. While the presentence report claims $1.07 million in loss for enhancement purposes, the government separately sought only $77,257 in victim restitution — and filed a forfeiture motion the same day seeking $127,870 as the total proceeds Martinez personally obtained from the scheme. The defense argues those figures, prepared by the same prosecutors from the same trial record, implicitly confirm that the loss figure driving the guidelines is more than eight times the government’s own accounting of what Martinez actually gained.
Beyond the loss figure, the defense challenges three separate sentencing enhancements that together add significantly to the guidelines range.
They contest a two-level role enhancement, arguing that neither Whitaker nor O’Neal was a subordinate Martinez directed. They noted Whitaker was a transactional partner pursuing his own interests, and O’Neal, by the government’s own trial description, independently “joined” the scheme because she stood to benefit, making her a co-principal rather than someone under Martinez’s control. They argue a separate two-level obstruction enhancement constitutes prohibited double-counting, since Martinez was already convicted on two standalone obstruction counts for destroying devices and producing a backdated document, and the guidelines bar stacking an enhancement on top of conduct that formed the basis of a conviction. Finally, the defense argues that if the role enhancement is removed, a two-level reduction for first-time offenders with zero criminal history points — which the presentence report denied solely because of that enhancement — becomes mandatory, as Martinez has no prior arrests, charges, or convictions of any kind.
If all four corrections are accepted, the defense calculates a final offense level of 28, carrying an advisory range of six years and six months to eight years and one month.
The defense also challenges the sentencing comparison data in the presentence report itself. The report cited national data showing a median sentence of 16 years and eight months for defendants at offense level 40 whose primary guideline was the money laundering statute — and presented that as the relevant benchmark for Martinez.
The defense argues that framing is misleading. Martinez’s case is fundamentally a bribery case; the money laundering count derived entirely from the bribery conduct and edged out the bribery guideline by just two levels due to a mechanical categorical increment that applies in every money laundering conviction. When the correct comparator group is used — bribery defendants at offense level 28 under the bribery guideline — national data shows six defendants over the past five fiscal years with an average sentence of four years and five months and a median of four-and-a-half years.
When queried at the presentence report’s own offense level of 40 under the bribery guideline, the defense notes the national database returns fewer than three defendants over five years. In the defense’s framing, that near-absence of comparators is itself evidence that the guidelines calculation has gone wrong.
The sentencing memorandum filed alongside the legal objections makes a parallel case grounded in Martinez’s personal circumstances. His attorneys describe a 35-year career of public service — Army service, eight years as an aircraft rescue firefighter, and two decades rising through the Virgin Islands Police Department to its top position — and submit character letters describing a man who continued to respond personally to crime scenes and feed the homeless even as commissioner.
The filing also details a significant medical history — a pituitary brain tumor requiring a seven-hour surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2023, removal of part of his colon in 2002, longstanding hypertension, and unresolved urological concerns discovered just days before he self-surrendered to federal custody in February. His attorneys say a pending cardiac evaluation was interrupted by his incarceration and remains unaddressed.
Martinez is 57 years old. His attorneys argue that his age, clean record, the loss of his career, and the collateral impact on his family — including a son who changed his college plans to stay home and support his mother — all weigh toward the lower end of their requested range.
More than a dozen people who know Martinez submitted character letters to the court ahead of his sentencing. Among them, Helen Schjang, who served as executive director of the Virgin Islands Public Employees Relations Board from 1981 to 1997, wrote that Martinez demonstrated “strong leadership, sound judgment, and genuine concern for others” during their years working together — and described how, after her daughter was murdered, Martinez and his VIPD team worked the case with compassion and professionalism during “one of the most painful times” in her family’s life. Longtime friend Ray Clarke wrote that Martinez shows up for people without being asked and described him expressing sincere remorse for the consequences his actions have had on others.
Letters were also submitted from retired VIPD Captain Adelbert Molyneaux Sr.; Raymond Hyndman, a former supervisor of Martinez at the VIPD; Dixie Ann Tang Yuk; Gregory Davila, a former VIPD coworker and close friend of Martinez for more than 40 years; O’Nesha Hansen, who worked with Martinez as the police administrative aide for the Commissioner’s Office; Kenny Schuster, a business owner who noted Martinez addressed the business community’s concerns in his capacity as police commissioner; friend Maria Moorehead; Sergeant Ludrick Thomas, who has known Martinez more than 20 years as a police officer; Derrick Moore, who partnered with Martinez to launch a community outreach initiative; Pastor Ronald Walker, who knows Martinez from his church — Word of Faith International Center, Virgin Islands Church; and Delbert Phipps Sr., a retired detective with the VIPD who achieved the rank of corporal and came to know Martinez both personally and professionally. The defense noted the letters round out a portrait of a man “whose value to the community far exceeds the conduct that brings him before this court.”
