Restaurant cook Luis Tepo-Martinez appealing sentence for jury conviction of indecent assault upon waitress

WILKES-BARRE — A former cook at a Mexican restaurant in Dallas Township convicted by a Luzerne County jury of molesting a female co-worker has filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Luis Tepo-Martinez, 34, of Wyoming Street, Wilkes-Barre, through his appellate attorney Robert M. Buttner, is contesting the recent denial by Judge David W. Lupas to modify the sentence of nine months to two years in prison on two counts of indecent assault.

A jury convicted Tepo-Martinez of the charges following a two-day trial in May.

Dallas Township police charged Tepo-Martinez after a woman claimed he pushed her into an office inside Burrito Loco Mexican Restaurant, pinned her against a wall and reached down her shirt on March 9, 2023.

When Tepo-Martinez was sentenced on Aug. 13, he was granted 523 days of pre-sentencing credit for time served at the county correctional facility.

Tepo-Martinez’s trial attorney, Frank T. McCabe II, filed a post-sentence motion claiming the credit for time served — 523 days — is “an extraordinary amount of time and well over the high end of the standard which is nine months, or 270 days.”

McCabe further argued that the evidence presented during the trial was insufficient to support the verdict in seeking a new trial.

Lupas denied the post-sentence motion resulting in Tepo-Martinez filing an appeal with the state Superior Court.