Little Eagle Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Failing to Register as Sex Offender

ABERDEEN - United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced today that U.S. District Judge Charles B. Kornmann has sentenced a South Dakota man convicted of Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. The sentencing took place on June 8, 2026.

Adrian Paul Martinez, age 70, was sentenced to five months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. This sentence runs consecutively to a five-month tribal sentence imposed for the same underlying conduct.

Martinez was indicted for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender by a federal grand jury in December 2025. He pleaded guilty on February 19, 2026.

Martinez was federally convicted of Aggravated Sexual Abuse and Sexual Abuse of a Minor in 1990. As a result, he is required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. In February 2022, Martinez registered a Little Eagle, South Dakota address as his primary residence. During the winter of 2024, Martinez stayed 42 nights at the Prairie Knights Casino in Fort Yates, North Dakota. He failed to update his registration to reflect that he habitually lived at the casino despite being directed to do so by law enforcement.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Marshals Service and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Sex Offender Registration Notification Act Compliance Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Thunem prosecuted the case.

Martinez was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service to serve his federal sentence.

This case was brought as a part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorney's Offices and the DOJ's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Unit, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.