WARSAW — An Albion man was sentenced to two and one-half years with the Indiana Department of Corrections for an incident that occurred while he was already incarcerated in the Kosciusko County Jail.

Tyler Ray Martin

Tyler Ray Martin, 20, 215 W. Hazel St., No. 2, Albion, pleaded guilty on Aug. 30, to intimidation, a level 6 felony, stemming from a sexual assault between inmates in the Kosciusko County Jail on Oct. 15, 2017.

Martin was accused of being one of four inmates who forced another inmate to insert his finger into the anus of one of the four men in order to remove drugs, police reported. Martin’s involvement, according to the affidavit of probable cause, included threatening to beat up the victim and also stealing at least part of his meal during breakfast.

The victim originally reported the incident to an officer of the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department and said he was too intimidated to return to his holding cell. The victim told officers that the four men — Christopher Orr, Danny Combs, Timothy Freeman and Martin were forcing him to engage in the previously mentioned act, as well as stealing his breakfast, hitting him with a pair of sandals and kicking him. The victim told police that at one point, one of the men dumped a cup of urine on his head.

In Kosciusko County Superior Court 1, presided by Judge David Cates on Thursday, Oct. 4, prosecutor Brad Voelz said that Martin was the final defendant in the case to receive sentencing.

“This is a long time coming in this case,” said Voelz, adding that trying to figure out which of the four men were the most culpable in the case was a challenge for not only him, but also Martin’s defense attorney David Kolbe. “I never thought I’d have to go through the horrors of the law school aptitude test again,” said Voelz. “We couldn’t figure out what anyone’s intent was.”

Both Voelz and Kolbe mentioned childhood trauma allegedly suffered by Martin as mitigators in the case, but Voelz added that in terms of dealing with his past, “Tyler is not going about it the right way.”

Kolbe said that he and Voelz had collaborated in order to decide how Martin should pay for his crime. “We worked together and labored to decide what would be the best outcome,” Kolbe said. “His role was mild, but the bottom line is that it had to do with bullying someone. But, we’ve had him in a concrete box and he needs to be out and working.”

Kolbe hinted at a possibility of having Martin serve a sentence outside of a jail cell, perhaps one that involves an ankle bracelet. “He should be incarcerated with electronics,” Kolbe said. Martin was given a chance to speak to Cates prior to sentencing, but his statements were unintelligible.

Cates acknowledged Martin’s childhood trauma and agreed with Kolbe that ideally Martin would better serve society by contributing to it on the outside but said that other circumstances trumped that scenario. “The record you have established by such a young age is also horrific,” Cates said. You have a substantial criminal history. You’ve chosen a different path and I’m sorry you chose it.”