Ex-Circus Circus Casino Worker Accused of Sexual Assault Dies Before Trial

Posted on: May 30, 2021, 03:31h. 

Last updated on: May 30, 2021, 04:21h.

Larry Henry Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Gaming Business, Legislation, Politics, Regulation.

A man accused of sexually assaulting a woman at Circus Circus Hotel and Casino in 2019 while he was employed at the Las Vegas Strip resort has died awaiting a trial, according to a report.

Arthur Joseph Martinez, 56, was arrested on July 16, 2019, and later charged with one count of sexual assault, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. If convicted, the Laughlin resident faced possible life in prison. He was released on bail the day after his arrest. His trial was delayed during the coronavirus pandemic. His case was dismissed last week in District Court.

According to the Clark County Office of the Coroner, Martinez killed himself on March 26, the newspaper reported. The only available detail is that he died in “a bedroom.”

Circus Circus is on the northwest end of the Strip near Slots-A-Fun and the newly built Resorts World Las Vegas.

In 2019, Martinez was a maintenance worker at Circus Circus when he came upon a woman on the 26th floor having trouble getting a vending machine to accept dollar bills. He said he would buy her a soda from a different machine, the newspaper reported. Because he had on a Circus Circus employee uniform, she trusted him, police said.

The suspect came back with a Pepsi, but soon left. The woman made mixed drinks. Martinez returned a short time later with another can of soda. He asked if he could enter the room, police said.

“Yeah, come on in,” the woman said, according to police. She told authorities she was then raped. She reported the incident within 15 minutes, police said.

Four hours later at the hospital, her blood alcohol content was 0.142 percent, police said.

“The intoxicated state that (she) would have been in that moment would inhibit her ability to give consent for a sexual encounter,” a detective wrote in a report.

Suspect Claimed Consensual Sex

Circus Circus officials told police the master hotel key in use on the 26th floor around the time of the incident was registered to Martinez, the Review-Journal reported.

When detectives confronted him, Martinez conceded he and the woman “did something, but it was consensual.”

Man, I’ve been married for 35 years. I’m a grandpa. I’ve got grandkids,” he said, according to police. “Man, I never sexually assaulted her.”

The suspect later failed a polygraph test at police headquarters, the newspaper reported.

“He could not explain the outcome of the examination and insisted that the machine was wrong,” a police officer wrote in a report.

Las Vegas Mobster’s Daughter Killed

Another recent legal case with a Las Vegas connection was delayed because of COVID-19 concerns.

In Los Angeles, the trial of multimillionaire Robert Durst recently resumed after a 14-month pandemic-related delay.

Berman is the daughter of former Las Vegas mobster and casino operator David Berman.

David Berman was an associate of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, a mobster who opened the Flamingo Casino on the Las Vegas Strip in December 1946. Six months later, Siegel was shot to death at his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills home. No one has ever been held criminally responsible in the shooting death.