SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — An Orange County man who denied killing his girlfriend’s 6-month-old daughter has been found not guilty in a retrial.
City News Service says Rodrigo Martinez was acquitted Monday and will be released from prison.
He was convicted in 2008 of assault on a child and murder. Prosecutors say he struck the infant in the head with a gun butt in 2005 at the Garden Grove home he shared with his girlfriend.
But two forensic experts testified at his retrial that the injuries were inflicted seven to 10 days earlier, when Martinez wasn’t with the child.
Martinez’s girlfriend, Alma Hernandez, pleaded guilty in 2007 to child abuse, endangerment and being an accessory after the fact. She was sentenced to four years in prison.
