Man charged with incest after impregnating young teen in his family, Columbus police say

A 35-year-old man has been charged with multiple sex crimes after impregnating a young teen in his family, according to Recorder’s Court testimony on Thursday.

Martin Tomas-Perez is charged with child molestation, incest and rape for an incident that took place in 2018. Tomas-Perez waived his appearance in court, but Columbus police Detective Mark Scruggs detailed the timeline of events.

Police were first called out to a local middle school in the area and met with a Georgia Division of Family & Children Services worker who had received a report from a counselor about the victim, who was then pregnant.

On Jan. 10, 2019, a forensic interview was conducted, in which the victim said she was five months pregnant and the father of her child was an 18-year-old. Scruggs testified the victim never made any mention of Tomas-Perez being her child’s father.

According to Scruggs, police had been made aware of other domestic incidents in the neighborhood where the victim and her parents lived.

The victim’s baby was born in April 2019 and later adopted. Once the adoption was complete, Scruggs testified that search warrants were issued for DNA of the child, the victim and Tomas-Perez.

On March 26, more than a year after the first interview, Columbus police got the DNA results back from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“Mr. Tomas-Perez was 99.99% the biological father of the child that had been born,” Scruggs said.

Warrants were issued, and Tomas-Perez was arrested April 10 at a plant in Marshall County, Alabama. He was extradited back to Muscogee County two days later.

All of Tomas-Perez’s charges are bound over to Superior Court and Judge Julius Hunter ordered that he have no contact with any family members involved.