Crime & Safety
Bethlehem Home Invasion Defendant Pleads Guilty
Victims testified today that they were bound and feared for their lives while home was ransacked.
Updated: 5:22 p.m.
After hearing his victims testify, Luis N. Martinez decided to plead guilty to multiple charges stemming from a home invasion robbery in Bethlehem's Historic District on Father's Day 2010, according to this story on The Morning Call website.
Both victims, James Lutz and Petrina Calantoni, said they feared for their life as they had occasional conversations with the robbers, who had bound them up with duct tape and zip ties.
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Martinez's alleged accomplice, Jeremiah Nieves, pleaded guilty last month, but has not been sentenced.
According to the story, Lutz testified that, at one point, liquid was poured on him and he believed he would be set on fire. At another point, chemicals were sprayed into his eyes.
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Lutz said he would get the same answer every time he asked what would happen: “Don’t worry about it man.
“You’re a rich Republican, you’ve got insurance,” Lutz said he was told.
“I tried to persuade them I was neither rich nor Republican,” Lutz reportedly testified.
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