Woman says Edward Martinez swindled her in land deal

Earlier this month Sylvia Baptist, a Belizean living in Los Angeles came to News Five’s studio, claiming that she had been swindled out of over twenty thousand dollars in a land deal with Edward Martinez. Baptist said she either wanted her money back or Martinez behind bars and it turns out she’s not the only one. According to Dorothy Fairweather, another Belizean living in L.A., she knows Martinez well, but he took advantage of their friendship to find other people to prey on. As he allegedly did with Baptist, Martinez once again used the name of his brother, Anthony “Boots” Martinez and other ministers, to coax potential buyers. Fairweather says that at least twelve of her relatives and friends paid for properties or construction services that never materialized. She spoke to News Five via phone and provided pictures of properties for sale and some under construction that she says were sent to them by Edward Martinez.

Dorothy Fairweather

Via Phone: Dorothy Fairweather, Belizean American

“In December 2010, he approached me with a business proposition, claiming that it was on behalf of Boots Martinez, that’s his brother and Minister Finnegan and Minister Vega. He claimed that they were looking for Belizean Americans abroad that eventually would be moving back to Belize and they wanted to purchase property and “low income property”.  If you had properties or a land that you have a house that you didn’t finish, they could do that and if you didn’t have any land, he had the connection to get you the land and through his brother they were gonna build the house.  He said that I was gonna get a percentage off of every deal that I made with him through the government and I told him, I don’t want to make anything right now; let’s help my family and friends in California first. And that’s why he didn’t get the opportunity to screw a whole bunch of us because I gave him a whole list of names of people that were interested. But I said, listen deal with my ones first. After a few months, I started to realize—because I travel to Belize a lot so he had been telling the people them lies over here that this is being done and this is being done. When I go to Belize, I would go to the different places and nothing wasn’t done. And I would come back to the people and tell them you know what, he said that he’s done this and he’s done that and nothing was done. He was taking pictures of other people’s houses and telling people over here, oh this is what the house looks like, this is what we have to sell, this is what we have done to your house.  He gave us false documents; false documents for the properties he had for sale in Corozal; sold it to other people here. If you go through the Cotton Tree ones, that’s another one of the persons. They have to be finishing their house on their own after giving Mr. Martinez four thousand US dollars.  A lot of people were sending money for him and he realized, oh I don’t want all this money coming in my name. So he started giving his wife’s name, he started doing it with one of his co-workers.”