A Coweta County man has been sentenced to 25 years in state prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl he met through Snapchat, with investigators saying a recording found on his own phone helped break the case open. Brallan Martinez, 25, will also serve lifetime probation and register as a sex offender once he completes his prison term.
A Three-Month Pattern of Abuse Uncovered on His Phone
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, Martinez pleaded guilty to enticing a child for indecent purposes, statutory rape, child molestation, aggravated child molestation and sexual exploitation of children. The outlet reports that Martinez was fully aware the victim was 14 years old when he befriended her online, and that the abuse continued over a three-month timeframe in 2024.
The case came together after detectives discovered a recorded video of the sexual abuse on his phone, the station's report states. That digital evidence became central to the prosecution and ultimately to his decision to plead guilty rather than face trial.
Held Without Bond for Nearly Two Years
Court records show the Coweta County Sheriff's Office arrested Martinez in 2024 following the discovery of the recordings, and he remained held without bond at the Coweta County Jail for nearly two years awaiting trial, per the same account. A judge sentenced Martinez to serve 25 years in state prison, granting credit for the time he already spent incarcerated, before the lifetime probation term and sex-offender registration take effect.
Martinez will be transferred from the Coweta County Jail to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve out his sentence, the article notes. Separately, deputies say they have also seized multiple electronic devices that belonged to Martinez, part of an effort to examine social media posts, photographs and text messages for evidence of other victims or offenses, according to a related FOX 5 Atlanta report.
How Georgia Law Treats Child Molestation Cases
A 2023 policy brief from the Georgia House Budget and Research Office describes molestation under state law as punishable by either life in prison or a prison term of at least 25 years followed by probation for life, a framework reflected in Martinez's sentence.
A Surge in Online Enticement Reports Nationwide
Cases like this one are unfolding against a backdrop of rapidly rising reports of online predators targeting children. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline received 1.4 million reports concerning online enticement in 2025, according to missingkids.org — a 158% increase in such reports compared with 2024.
The same data shows more than 800 online-enticement reports in 2025 involved an offender traveling to meet a child in person, while reports related to child sex trafficking jumped 323% compared with 2024. The CyberTipline also fielded more than 170,000 reports from members of the public last year, and NCMEC identified and escalated more than 53,000 reports as urgent or involving a child in imminent danger.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation describes the CyberTipline as a national reporting mechanism covering child sexual exploitation, online enticement and related offenses. Other Georgia cases have followed similar patterns of online grooming leading to lengthy federal or state prison terms, including a College Park man sentenced to nearly 17 years in federal prison in a case involving sexually explicit images sent online, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia, and another College Park man sentenced earlier this month on charges tied to impersonating a child online to entice victims, per the same federal prosecutors' office.
