■■Warning: Distressing content. Contains descriptions of battery, attempted sexual assault and attempted murder.
A 17-year-old has been pictured smiling as he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for attacking his teacher.
On 8 April, 2022, Jonathon Eluterio Martinez Garcia – then aged 16 – asked his teacher, Sade, if they could discuss his grades after class.
The Eldorado High School student proceeded to attack his teacher – assaulting, attempting to rape her and attempting to kill her.
At the 17-year-old’s sentencing on Wednesday, 28 June, Sade pleaded that Garcia be ‘in prison for as long as possible’.
Thinking she was meeting with the student after class to discuss why he had missed some assignment deadlines, Sade found herself brutally attacked by her student.
Garcia is reported by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as quickly becoming ‘violent’ – ‘punching the victim and strang[ling] her until she lost consciousness’.
Prosecutors said Garcia choked Sade with a chord and the court heard from Sade that she woke up at one point during the attack to find her underwear pulled down by Garcia. The New York Post reports that he later admitted to police that he raped his teacher despite saying he ‘blacked out’ during the attack.
According to prosecutors, Garcia then trapped Sade underneath bookshelves, and Sade recalled having liquid poured over her, the teenager allegedly threatening to ‘set something on fire’.
Garcia is then reported as attempting to cut Slade’s wrists, questioning: “Why won’t you die?”
During the hearing, Sade said, as per the Sun: “I have been in prison by him twice now.
“The first time was during the actual attack. He held me hostage in my own classroom. I lost consciousness at his hands numerous times. He would beat me until my body just couldn’t take it again and again. I just thought there was no way I was making it out of that classroom alive.
“The second imprisonment has been every day since. My body and mind feel as though they’re no longer my own.
“It only makes sense that he should be in prison for as long as possible.”
Garcia’s attorney tried to argue the 17-year-old has no history of anything but being a perfect loving kid’ and his actions were caused by a drug called montelukast – a medication used to prevent asthma.
The drug has recently come under scrutiny for allegedly causing neuropsychiatric problems in those who use it, an investigation by Reuters states.
Garcia pleaded guilty to battery with use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm, attempted sexual assault and attempted murder.
He told the court: “I regret what I’ve done. I also regret the things I should have done, but didn’t do.”
The 17-year-old was tried as an adult and sentenced to at least 16 years and up to 40 years in prison.
Clark County District Court Judge Kathleen Delaney reflected on the crime as ‘the most heinous type […] there could be’.
