| On the morning of August 16, 2015, a 4-year-old girl in New Britain, Connecticut, told her mother that a man had come to her bedroom window during the night and taken her to some nearby woods. She said the man put his hand on her vagina. She told the man she wanted to go home, and he returned her to the bedroom.
The girl described the man as wearing a black shirt and a hat, having a small beard, speaking with an English or British accent, and not having blue eyes. In a later interview, she would say that “Antonio’s father” was the man who pulled her through the window.
Officers with the New Britain Police Department investigated. They found a white bucket outside the bedroom window. The girl underwent a sexual-assault examination that included taking swabs of her clothing and person for potential evidence.
On September 24, 2015, police in New Britain arrested 27-year-old Alexy Martinez-Mercado on two counts of criminal attempt to commit burglary. According to the police, Martinez-Mercado had attempted to enter occupied homes at night. One incident was said to have taken place on September 13; the other, on September 21.
By the time of the arrest, the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory had conducted DNA analysis of the sexual-assault examination swabs and other evidence from the August incident. The results excluded Martinez-Mercado as a contributor to the genetic material and did not identify any other persons.
The police interviewed Martinez-Mercado on September 24. He gave a statement that appeared to indicate his involvement with the August incident. The details of that statement are not publicly available, but as a prosecutor would later note: “There was a statement provided by the defendant where he did make some admissions. He did not make some of the denials that would have been expected in this kind of case.”
On October 1, Martinez-Mercado was charged with first-degree kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault of a minor, home invasion, and risk of injury to a minor by sexual contact.
On September 26, 2016, in the New Britain Judicial District of Hartford County, Martinez-Mercado entered an Alford plea to first-degree sexual assault. Under an Alford plea, defendants do not admit guilt but acknowledge that the state has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. At the same proceeding, Martinez- Mercado also pled guilty to the two burglary charges.
He received 10 years in prison on the sexual-assault conviction. For one of the burglary convictions, he received 10 years in prison to run concurrently with the sexual-assault conviction. For the other, he received five years in prison, to run consecutively.
On November 2, 2017, the state crime lab notified the New Britain Police Department and the State’s Attorney’s Office in New Britain of a database hit on the swabs from the August 16 incident.
The connected profile was for Tailor Albert-Quinones, who had pled guilty in 2017 to burglary and other charges. Additional testing in 2020 included Albert-Quinones as a contributor to genetic material found on the girl’s nightgown and underwear. Albert-Quinones also lived in New Britain.
On September 22, 2022, Martinez-Mercado moved for a new trial on the sexual-assault conviction, arguing that the new evidence connected another man to the incident.
In its response on February 3, 2023, the state agreed to vacate that conviction. “Despite the other evidence linking the defendant to the sexual assault case, along with the other cases that involve similar conduct, the state believes that the DNA evidence undermines the integrity of the underlying conviction,” the response said.
At a hearing on March 2, 2023, before Judge Maureen Keegan, a prosecutor said that after the DNA hit identified Albert-Quinones, the state reinvestigated the case. The investigation found no connection between the two men. “Ultimately, we were able to determine that there is no evidence linking this defendant to the sexual assault other than the claims in the confession and the interview, which did have some issues, so to speak, given the cognitive and psychological disabilities that the defendant has,” the prosecutor said.
Separately, an attorney working with Martinez-Mercado said Martinez-Mercado was not “Antonio’s father” and did not know a child named Antonio.
Judge Keegan granted the motions to vacate the conviction and dismiss the sexual-assault charge against Martinez-Mercado. She also modified his sentences on the remaining, unrelated burglary convictions, allowing him to be released from prison that day.
After the dismissal, Martinez-Mercado filed a claim for state compensation, seeking more than $5 million for his wrongful conviction.
– Ken Otterbourg
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