A former Florida police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for forcing two teenagers to undress during a traffic stop in August 2016.
Michael Martinez is a former officer of the Mikosuki Police Department, serving the Mikosuki tribe of Florida Indians. During a routine traffic stop, Martinez stopped two teenagers, Remy Riley and her ex-boyfriend Kyle Schulta, in the Everglades City because they were parking. At that time, both teenagers drove from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale.
After finding the alcohol and marijuana paraphernalia, Martinez told the two teenagers that they were either arrested or followed him to a secret location. After that, the arrest affidavit stated:
“Instead of arrest [them], Michael Martinez ordered them to run naked and from [name redacted]. [Shoulta and Riley] If they do not run naked, they will be threatened with arrest, so they will be blackmailed, which violates Florida law. “
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Both Riley and Schulta testified against Martinez, then 28, in the Florida verdict.
“I can choose to go to jail or run away, so I chose to run naked,” Shuerta, now in his 20s, told local radio station WSVN.
“I took off my pants. I took off my shirt. I looked at him a little bit, like, is this enough?” Riley said, she was also in her 20s. “He was like,’That’s it?’ I turned around, I turned and left, I took off my underwear, I took off my bra.”
“Then I held myself and ran in the opposite direction,” Riley said. “I held myself and ran back in the opposite direction. When I held myself, he was like, removing your hand from your body so that I could see.”
Riley went on to say that she was puzzled by Martinez’s request.
“This is not what I want to do,” Riley said. “It feels like I have no choice. At the age of 18, I don’t think you should know what to do. I think it’s his job to do the right thing.”
According to local reports, Martinez has been suspended at the Mikosuki Police Station, but he was fired by the department in 2017. He was also arrested in 2017 and convicted of racketeering in an unrelated case in October 2019. After the trial, he was immediately detained by the Florida Department of Corrections.
