ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A man sentenced to life in prison in 2011 plead guilty Wednesday to a 2007 sexual assault cold case out of Corpus Christi, Texas, the Nueces County District Attorney's Office told news station KIII-TV.
According to Pinellas County court records, Jerral Martin was accused of a string of crimes in the county spanning from 1994 to 2008, including burglary, grand theft, dealing in stolen property, aggravated battery, felony battery, kidnapping and felonious possession of a concealed weapon.
Martin has been serving multiple sentences, the first of which started in 2011, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. The 43-year-old was sentenced to two 30-year prison terms each for burglary with assault and sexual battery with coercion that year.
He was sentenced to life in prison for sexual battery with force in 2012, along with a 15-year sentence that year for burglary.
In 2013, Martin received another life sentence for burglary with assault.
Four of those sentences were for crimes were committed in 2008, but the 2013 life sentence was for a crime committed in 2007, the same year Martin is accused of raping a Corpus Christi woman.
According to Texas news outlet, KRIS-TV, Martin’s DNA profile was entered into the national Combined DNA index system, or CODIS, and it was a match to the woman who was raped in Corpus Christi.
It is not clear when the match was made but Martin was indicted in February 2018, according to Nueces County Court records.
Martin was transferred to Nueces County, where he plead guilty to sexual assault this morning, court records show.
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