12-Year Term for 'Cell Phone Bandit'

In each robbery, Martinez would show a note demanding cash while talking on the phone. In the fourth robbery, she flashed a handgun in her purse, which led to the federal gun charge with a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years. Surveillance photos of the fourth robbery, Nov. 4 in Ashburn, earned her the cell phone bandit nickname.

As part of Martinez's attempt to win a lighter sentence, her mother, Michelle Medina, testified and spoke publicly about her daughter for the first time. Medina confirmed her daughter's turbulent upbringing in Santa Fe, N.M., which included drug use and two suicide attempts before Martinez turned 11.

Medina said Martinez's life grew difficult after her father severely beat Medina and Martinez's older sister and "threw [Candice] through a wall" when Martinez was 6. Medina said she became addicted to prescription drugs after that, and both parents lost custody of their children due to the abusive situation.

Medina explained that when Martinez was 12, her daughter took the initiative to contact Boys and Girls Town in Omaha and moved there from Santa Fe. Once there, Martinez excelled and won a full four-year scholarship to the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

But Martinez fell into another abusive relationship during her freshman year, dropped out and moved back to Santa Fe, Medina said. She attempted suicide for a third time, Medina said, nearly dying twice at the hospital.

Last April, she moved in with a cousin in Burke and tried to start a new life, studying radiology at Northern Virginia Community College. That's where she met Williams, also a student there, in September.

The judge asked Martinez, "What did Mr. Williams say to you to make you rob a bank?"

Martinez responded that she and Williams just wanted things "fast": She wanted to move out of her cousin's home in Burke; she needed a roommate; and Williams wanted to move in with her but didn't have the money. When Williams had the idea to rob a bank, "I was afraid he was going to do it alone," Martinez said. "I was afraid something bad was going to happen to him."

The judge reviewed some of the details of the case, saying that Martinez and Williams had decided to use a gun in the fourth robbery "to obtain more money -- so this was not about money for the rent."

The judge said he had reviewed Martinez's life story, including her seeming rise to success at Boys and Girls Town and her enrollment in college. "Reading your life story, one would have thought you'd be graduating from college," Lee said. "But now, you're graduating to prison."