Northpinellas: Sexual battery charge dismissed

LARGO -- A 1986 sexual battery charge against a Tennessee man was dismissed this week by a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge who ruled that the statute of limitations expired.

Mac Amos Martin, 46, of Maryville, Tenn., was arrested on April 10, 15 years to the day after a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with the sexual assault of a Clearwater woman who met him at a bus terminal.

Martin, arrested as he visited St. Petersburg, was accused of forcing a woman to perform oral sex after she invited him to stay at her home, an arrest report said.

But Martin's attorneys successfully argued on Monday to Judge Bruce Boyer that the case should be dismissed because the state failed to begin prosecution in a timely manner. Assistant Public Defender Ray Rodgers argued that the statute of limitations expired in 1989.

Though a defendant's flight from prosecution can be considered in determining whether the statute expires, Rodgers argued that deputies had information in their possession that would have allowed them to locate Martin in Tennessee.

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