PHOENIX MAN SENTENCED TO 125 YEARS IN PRISON FOR PARADISE VALLEY HOME INVASIONS

A Phoenix man who kept valley residents in fear during a series of Paradise Valley home invasions in 2009 has been sentenced to 125 years in prison. He will not be eligible for release until he has served 25 years.
In May 2012, 34-year-old Justin Lee Martin was convicted on 23 counts including five counts of armed robbery, five counts of kidnapping, five counts of misconduct involving weapons, two counts of theft of means of transportation and one count of attempted armed robbery.
Martin was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years on 11 of the counts. He received sentences ranging between 16 and 25 years on the other counts. The judge presiding over the case ordered that some of the sentences will run concurrently and the others consecutively.
Martin was arrested in December 2009 after six home invasions in affluent Paradise Valley east of Phoenix. At the time of his arrest, Paradise Valley police suspected Martin and his uncle, Darrel Thompson, 53, of being behind six home invasions in the affluent foothills community. He was arrested in the case and pleaded guilty in October 2010 to charges of armed robbery and kidnapping. Police used Thompson’s ankle-monitoring device to place him in the area of the crimes at the same time they occurred. Thompson is a registered sex offender and was on parole at the time.
In nearly every case, someone burst in and flashed a weapon, ransacking homes of valuables while residents were held captive.
Police arrested Martin after a police officer took down the license plate to the silver Toyota Tundra that Martin was driving out of a Paradise Valley neighborhood on the day of the last armed robbery. Investigators watched Martin over several days, eventually witnessing him case several Paradise Valley homes and climb over fences to get in the backyards.