Fake California Paramedic Pleads Guilty

A firefighter who used a forged state license to work as a paramedic for the Sacramento and Galt fire departments pleaded guilty Wednesday even as legislators studied a proposal to restrict independent medical authorities' ability to punish problem rescuers.

David Jose Martinez of Galt pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of violating the state health and safety code. He admitted he had pretended to be a licensed paramedic and unlawfully offered advanced emergency medical care since 1999, court documents show.

Martinez, 42, was sentenced to 90 days' home detention, fined $110 and put on three years of probation. In exchange for his guilty plea, the district attorney dropped a third charge of forgery.

Just blocks from the Sacramento Superior Court building where Martinez was sentenced, members of the Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security voted 4-2 to send Assembly Bill 220, the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights, to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

That bill aims to give firefighters, including firefighter paramedics and emergency medical technicians, the same rights as peace officers when it comes to disciplinary investigations and interrogations.

A Sacramento Bee investigation in January found that weak oversight by the state Emergency Medical Services Authority, which licenses paramedics, left much of the oversight to local agencies. There, unqualified paramedics and EMTs hid their background and lack of qualifications in myriad ways to land and keep their jobs.

As a result, EMSA and others advocated for stronger statewide oversight and background checks, while unions proposed additional worker protections through the firefighter bill of rights.

Introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, the bill is sponsored by the California Professional Firefighters labor union.

Union lobbyist Christy Bouma said the bill is needed to protect firefighter EMTs and paramedics from punishment first by their fire service employer, then again by a local or state emergency medical services agency.

Other supporters of the legislation include the California Labor Federation and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The bill is opposed by the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties and the Emergency Medical Services Administrators Association of California, which content that it would limit independent medical oversight.

League of Cities lobbyist T. Anthony Thomas said the firefighter bill of rights was unnecessary.

"The measures in the bill are already included in collective agreements, local ordinances and personnel documents," Thomas said. "It already takes almost an act of Congress to get a civil servant fired."

The Martinez fraud highlighted weaknesses in the fire department background check process. His fraud was discovered by Elk Grove Community Services District during a routine background check when Galt and Elk Grove merged their fire services - after Martinez had previously fooled Galt and Sacramento officials.

Martinez quit his job in Galt before he was fired. He now works as a tile setter.

His plea bargain was negotiated by his attorney, Christopher Miller, and Deputy District Attorney Caroline Clark, who finalized the agreement Wednesday in the chambers of Court Commissioner Craig B. Regan.

Miller and Clark both declined to comment.

Dressed in a sport jacket and tie, and wearing wire rim glasses, Martinez smiled as he left the courtroom but could not be reached for comment later.

A pre-plea report prepared by a Sacramento County probation officer states that Martinez joined the Galt Fire Department in May 2006 after working in Sacramento beginning in 1999 using the forged credential.

Until the discovery of his ruse in September 2006, Martinez responded to 71 emergency calls for Galt, and administered advanced medical care to 31 patients, earning no complaints, the report said.

Martinez offered no explanation to probation authorities, explaining only that he took paramedic training, but never secured a state license.

"The defendant indicated he is currently in individual counseling in an attempt to determine why he failed to follow through with his paperwork," the report stated.

(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

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