By NATALIE SACKET
Staff Reporter
The roommate of Alejandro Martinez, the Northwestern student accused of second degree rape, said the victim told both men she was older than she actually is.
Dalton Imberi said profiles on two online sites gave her age as 16 and 17, rather than her actual age of 13.
Martinez, 18, was arrested in his Coronado Hall dorm room Jan. 28, a day after he admitted to police he had sex with the girl.
Court documents said Martinez and the 13-year-old Alva Middle School student met on a social networking site called Meet Me prior to becoming involved in sexual activity.
Imberi also had exchanged messages with the girl, stating that “she had texted [him] first.”
Imberi was questioned by authorities, and his mobile device was taken for investigation.
According to Imberi, “Alejandro asked her age, and she said she was 16.”
The girl’s Meet Me profile is no longer available, but her Facebook profile lists her birth date as Aug. 10, 1997, which would make her 17 years old.
Imberi said his conversations with the girl originally consisted of small talk, but soon became more personal.
“She said she had not had her first kiss, and asked me if I would kiss her. I told her no because I was 18 and she was 16 and I wasn’t comfortable with that.”
Imberi said that “on Monday (Jan. 26) she asked me to call her. She said specifically she wanted to hear my voice.” In this phone conversation she asked Imberi to have sex with her, he said.
Imberi emphatically declined, explaining, “I know that in Oklahoma 16 is the age of consent, but if parents got involved they wouldn’t be all right with it. Morally, I wasn’t all right with it. She was embarrassed for asking and apologized.”
The day that the girl and Martinez met, Imberi was in the Fine Arts building where he was recording a song with a friend. Martinez texted Imberi at the time, informing him that he had a female guest in their dorm room.
Before returning to their room, Imberi texted Martinez to ensure it was all right that he come to the room. Martinez responded that he and the girl were “just hanging out,” according to Imberi.
Before Imberi reached Coronado, he received a call from the girl. Imberi said that the girl revealed that the person she was meeting that day was Martinez, Imberi’s roommate.
“I was creeped out. I had no idea at this point they knew each other. For something like that to be a coincidence, it was shocking.”
Imberi then went up to his room, where he met the girl in person for the first time. According to him, the two were seated on opposite sides of the room. “I had no notion they had sex at this point.”
Imberi said the girl called her mom approximately 10 minutes later on Martinez’s phone to see if she could stay longer. “She told her mom she was with someone other than Alejandro.”
The mother told the girl she could not stay any longer, so Martinez escorted the girl downstairs where her mother picked her up.
Imberi and Martinez went to dinner later that evening, when Martinez received a message from the girl. “She had texted him and said it was nice to meet him and apologized for being ‘ugly,”’ Imberi said.
Later that evening Martinez revealed to Imberi that the two had fully penetrative sex.
The next day after morning classes, Imberi returned to Coronado Hall. “I saw a bunch of cops and thought someone was getting busted for drugs. I walked up to my room, and as soon I set my bag down, there was a knock on the door with five police officers in our suite.”
“They interviewed [Martinez and me] and got our statements. We were immediately patted down and they took our phones.”
Martinez was arrested later that night.
Imberi said Martinez has been fired from his job in Woodward due to the incident and has also been evicted from the dorms.
Imberi said Martinez’s side of the story has not been heard.
“He’s a good guy. He wants to be a doctor. If he gets charged with this, not only is it 1-15 years imprisonment, but he’s a sex offender for the rest of his life. He can’t be a doctor; he can barely be someone who works at McDonald’s.”