'Let's do this together': Victims advocate for Westchester DA helps families in pain
Jessica Martinez is there for it all and more as an advocate in the Westchester District Attorney's Office. She makes sure the families of crime victims get some peace of mind beyond the justice they seek.
"It's nice to have someone behind the scenes when it comes to a family member they just lost, a son, a father, a cousin, a friend," Martinez said. "It's very hard. They're going through a lot of emotions and I like to be the person thinking with a cool head, and like, 'OK, I'm here for you, what do you need?"
Martinez was working for the county Department of Social Services when she applied for a job as a legal secretary in the District Attorney's Office in early 2022. She figured it was a long shot, that the job would go to someone with more experience. But she got it.
Former Assistant District Attorney Christine O'Connor, the recently retired chief of the trials and investigations division, said Martinez stood out because of her diligence and organization skills, on top of how incredibly nice she was.
Around that time, new District Attorney Mimi Rocah was asking O'Connor why the trial division didn't have someone assigned to help victims and their families.
There is the Victims' Justice Center that helps with funerals and connections to therapists and support groups. And the DA's special prosecutions division has long used advocates to help with the unique needs of child and sex abuse victims.
O'Connor hadn't considered such a position for the trial division, saying trial prosecutors could often be territorial about victims.
But that spring, aside from overseeing all cases headed to trial, O'Connor was preparing for the murder trial of Luis Alturet Rivera in the 2017 fatal shooting of his girlfriend, Diana Casado, in Yonkers.
None of the witnesses or victim's relatives in that case spoke English well enough to communicate with O'Connor and her fellow ADA John O'Rourke. The prosecutors' Spanish was limited.
They turned to Martinez to help interpret. Then they and their colleagues began to rely on her for much more. Martinez made herself available on holidays and weekends, whenever she was needed.
"We might figure out we're not getting to a witness yet, we'll ask her to change their flight," O'Connor said. "These were things the ADAs used to do at 7 o'clock at night when they were trying to figure out 'How am I going to do the direct of this hostile witness the next day?'"
Soon, prosecutors were wondering how they ever managed without Martinez. O'Connor told Rocah there was no need to hire someone new for an advocate's role. Martinez officially became a victim/witness support trial assistant.
The Alturet-Rivera case was an eye-opener for Martinez, the first time she had been involved in anything related to a homicide. Now such cases are mostly what the 38-year-old Yonkers native works on. The cases present similar issues for her. The intangibles are how much support a family needs, including what cues they provide to how they want her to help.
Beyond their grief, the long slog to trial is trying on families. Even for routine conferences they feel the need to be in court, to stand up for their loved ones.
Many appearances leave them frustrated or angry: a defendant wants a better plea deal or isn't even brought to court, making it a wasted trip for the victim's family.
Martinez is by their side through it all.
"I always let them vent," she said. "There are people who have bad days and that's ok. I kind of make it into we had a bad day, not you had a bad day. We had a bad day. Today wasn't a good day but let's see what happens next time. I'm here for you; let's do this together."
She tries to stay away from legal issues. If they press her when the assistant district attorney is not around, she'll only discuss certain things after conferring with prosecutors.
"I will only give them the information I'm allowed to but I also want to be honest with them, because they are looking for transparency and our office wants that too. So I try to be that as much as I can," she said.
She likes to say the prosecutors wear multiple hats. They have to navigate the legal issues, comfort victims' families, weigh plea deals.
When prosecutors have to walk out of court to deliver bad news — maybe that a defendant won't be getting the maximum sentence or that there won't be a trial because of a defendant's psychiatric condition — they know Martinez is there as a buffer. She's the one the family will turn to when prosecutors head back to their office.
"The prosecutor is sort of on a balance beam of 'we get it' but here's the legal impediment why we can't (do more)," O'Connor said. "We have to talk through both, the emotional side and the legal side, which when they are so overcome with emotion, they can't even hear what we're talking about legally. So it helps to have, as Jessica says, that person with one hat. It's hugely important to have another person sort of walk them down the hallway and tell them, call me anytime. I can't quantify how helpful it is."
Acquittals or the dismissal of charges are particularly tough on victims' families and prosecutors. And on Martinez.
"This is not something you can say 'Oh, this is just another day.' You can't," she said. "Sometimes you do take it home. You do think about it a lot. Sometimes it hurts you. But I pray for them. I try to be their support system because they need that. It's just sad and I don't think there's anything to cure sad."
In October, when Rafael Ramos was found not guilty of murder in the 1997 Yonkers killing of his estranged wife, Nusinaida, Martinez was heartbroken for the victim's mother.
"That was a very sad moment for me," Martinez said. "All she wanted was justice. To see her so upset, it hurt me."
The victim's mother, Elda Montas, had been pleased that prosecutors brought the case to trial after so many years but was devastated by the verdict. She had placed her faith in God that she would get justice for her daughter but felt the jury let her down.
She said having Martinez constantly by her side was a source of great comfort during the trial. And her follow-up calls since and promises to stay in touch have meant a lot.
"She's such a great girl," Montas said. "They all treated me so well. I'll never be able to repay them properly."
Martinez was constantly in court with Deborah Kavourias and her sister, Elaine Andriotis-Chronis. Their sister, Stephanie Kavourias, had been killed on her block in Hartsdale in August 2023 by a driver who was high on drugs, Antonio Robles-Sanchez. He pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to two to six years.
The family's grief included anger not just at Robles-Sanchez but also the system — that his crime carried a maximum sentence of only 2 1/3 to 7 years.
But Martinez found the Kavourias sisters inspiring, as they reached a level of forgiveness she didn't think was possible.
"It made me think there is hope in this world, that there's people who don't wish bad on everyone even though there's something bad, traumatic that happened," she said.
Deborah Kavourias said it was Martinez who helped get them to that place.
As the family's frustration grew that Robles-Sanchez was the focus of attention, Martinez helped them know that it wasn't about him. She took their every call, answered every email immediately, got back to them with the information they needed if she didn't have it at first.
"Beyond her position, her personality and her professionalism took us above what we first came in with," Kavourias said. "Not that we're not angry now, we're still angry. But we were untouchable, we couldn't break that anger and each time we were with her, when we went to court, it seemed to get better for us. We're still angry but not with that hatred."
O'Connor said that "geography matters." In other words, if Martinez wasn't on the 5th floor of the courthouse with the trial prosecutors, maybe they wouldn't turn to her so often. That begs the question: Does she ever feel overused? "Never," she laughed.
"I think naturally I just like to help people. I want to put myself in the situation where if I were in their shoes, how would I want to be treated," Martinez said. "What if my mother was in that situation? How would I want her to be treated? And I always treat people that way, because kindness doesn't cost a lot."
Staff writer Alexandra Rivera contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Westchester NY DA's victim advocate helps families with pain, anger
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Martinez and one of the workers who spoke with NBC News said agents lined up all of the cuffed employees and made them kneel while pointing their weapons at them. 'Agents and officers operated within established law enforcement standards in order to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers, the public and the illegal aliens themselves,' the ICE spokesperson said in response to this allegation. Last week was not the first time immigration authorities attempted to detain employees from Emiliano's Mexican Restaurant & Bar. The ICE spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that a June incident was part of 'an investigation that ultimately led to the execution of the warrants' this month. Martinez said that on a night in June, he got a call on the hotline, reporting unmarked vehicles surrounding a nearby apartment complex. When the volunteer who was dispatched arrived at the area, she noticed the vehicles were parked with their engines still running, in front and behind the restaurant. According to Martinez, it looked like federal agents inside the vehicles were waiting for workers to come out of the restaurant as it was closing. The vehicles left once TV crews arrived on the scene, he said. 'There were nine people in that restaurant on lockdown,' Martinez said, adding his group doesn't know the immigration status of those workers since it doesn't ask people about that as part of its policy. 'But you don't have to be undocumented to be afraid of getting detained.' Since launching the hotline in March, Casa San Jose has received more than 650 calls reporting more than 100 immigration detentions in the area and has dispatched volunteers in at least 70 instances, according to Martinez. In the wake of the raids at Emiliano's Mexican Restaurant and Bar locations, the community came together and collectively donated more than $133,000. The workers who spoke with NBC News said the business plans to use the funds to cover bond expenses, one month worth of salary for each employee detained and repair damage done to the restaurant.
