A Bountiful woman who pleaded guilty last fall to having sex with a student of hers who later became her foster son was ordered released from the Davis County Jail Tuesday.
Donna J. Martinez, 40, served nine months of a one-year sentence imposed by 2nd District Judge Rodney S. Page.She showed progress in counseling and educational work, defense attorney Terry Cathcart told the judge in asking for her early release. The judge agreed, ordering her released on probation and stipulating she continue her therapy.
Martinez was charged with four first-degree felony counts from sexual encounters she had with a teenage boy she met while teaching industrial arts at Northwest Middle School in 1995 in Salt Lake City.
She eventually gained custody of the boy and moved him into her Bountiful home in January 1994, according to court records, where the sexual encounters occurred.
Martinez pleaded guilty to one of the charges in a plea negotiation, and Page sentenced her to prison, then stayed the prison term and ordered her to spend a year in the county jail.
In addition to her own progress, Martinez has helped several other inmates earn their high school GED while in jail, Cathcart told the judge.