A mother is making a desperate outcry for alleged sexual abuse victims of a former third-grade teacher to come forward.
Danilo Martinez is accused of inappropriately touching multiple young girls, sometimes in front his entire classroom back in 2019.
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The mother who remains anonymous says she knows it won’t be easy to be around Martinez, but ahead of his trial, she hopes her voice will inspire other abused girls to push through their fears and help keep him in jail, away from other children.
“They wake up crying at night… they don’t want to have communication with older people, or people that look like him,” The mother said.
She says school is supposed to be a safe space for kids, but that wasn’t the case for her daughters who attended Eickenroht Elementary school back in 2019 when they were nine and 10 years old.
“It happened throughout the year, but my daughters spoke up at the Christmas party,” she said.
Martinez was 47 years old at the time.
“My girls started telling me that it had been happening for a while, that he would take them behind the desk and just started touching them,” she said.
KPRC 2 first reported on Martinez back in early 2020 after the allegations came to light and parents were outraged.
“That makes me very concerned especially when you have little kids,” said another concerned parent at that time.
Painful memories run deep for the mother of two of the alleged victims.
“I should’ve paid attention when they would tell me ‘I don’t want to go to school today,’” she said.
She says she’s now focused on fighting for justice, but worries Martinez could get off easy because the prosecutor told her some victims are afraid to testify.
“He [Martinez] could have a chance of just getting ten years probation, and that’s not right,” she says.
Court records show there are currently four active child sex abuse cases against Martinez but the mother who spoke to us believes there are at least 7 victims.
Martinez has been out of jail on a combined $250,000 bond. The jury selection phase of his trial is scheduled for Monday.
