Time behind bars inspired one man to make a difference in the community

Lina Portman2 weeks ago

1 3 minutes read

Time behind bars inspired one man to make a difference in the community

Drew Bracken
| Special dispatch to Columbus

He changed for the better in prison.

“I grew up in Texas and had a very active imagination,” Juan Martinez said. “I always imagined that I would one day be a pilot. Later, as a teenager, I wanted to be an architect, but I also thought that one day I would help troubled teenagers. I never imagined that I would be doing what I do.”

Today, Martinez is director of development and communications at Kindway, a Westerville-based organization that helps people transitioning out of the state prison system.

But Martinez initially took a very different path.

“I used marijuana as a teenager and sold it to fund my addiction. At the time, my girlfriend was 15 and I was 17. We dropped out of school to work dead-end jobs to take care of her younger siblings, her young nieces and nephews, and her mother. After a while, child protective services came to our house to take the nieces and nephews away because we were unable to care for them. So we struggled to find better jobs and a bigger house to take the kids back,” he said.

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“A week before my 21st birthday, a family member visited me and offered me the opportunity to make $4,000 a month selling marijuana. I saw it as a way to get our loved ones out of the foster care system. I started out selling $20,000 a month worth of marijuana and worked my way up over the next 10 years to $250,000 a month.”

Martinez moved to Ohio in 1993 and was arrested for drug possession in 2003.

“My fiancée was arrested as a co-defendant,” he said. “We faced 21 years in prison, and I was convicted of federal drug offenses stemming from the same conduct while serving my state prison sentence.”

But things have changed.

“I wasn’t a religious person,” Martinez said, “but it didn’t take me long to realize that only Christian volunteers were visiting us at a time when we weren’t of much use to anyone. So I decided to become a follower of Jesus Christ. My heart was set on working in ministry one day, so I graduated from Winebrenner Theological Seminary at Marion Prison just before I left prison in 2018.”

For Martinez, things come full circle when he works with the Rev. Tim Smith, a former prison chaplain and current employee at Kindway.

“Juan worked for me for nearly 10 years as an inmate,” Smith said. “Juan’s humor, human simplicity, and active faith in God made him a pleasure to be around and an asset to our team. His insight into what helps and hurts people is shared in a raw and real way because he is honest.”

“I am grateful that prison saved my life,” Martinez said. “I learned things on this journey that I never would have learned otherwise. The danger, discomfort, despair, loneliness and other stressors made me more aware of myself.”

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“I empathize with others who are in the same situation as me. When I preach or speak to people in prison, I let them know that I came to prison in a terrible state and I left in a terrible state. It gives them realistic expectations and real hope that they too can change.”

Drew Bracken grew up in Upper Arlington, was a television news anchor for years and is a longtime freelance writer for Gannett newspapers. If you have a suggestion for an inspiring profile for the future, email Emily Rohozen, entertainment and things to do editor, at [email protected].

Lina Portman

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