Martin, Jr., was elected mayor on April 6, 1954, just prior to a natural disaster, the flooding of the Rio Grande, which caused extensive damage to both Laredo and its sister city, Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. Martin won six four-year terms until he declined to run again in 1978. A month after the self-styled "reform" candidate Aldo Tatangelo was elected mayor in 1978, Martin was indicted by a federal grand jury on a single count of mail fraud. He pleaded guilty and paid a $1,000 fine and $201,118 to the city in restitution for use of city employees on his private properties. He was further sentenced to serve thirty weekends in the Webb County Jail. As a result of the strong mayor-council system of government that had existed in Laredo for more than eighty years, the revised Laredo City Council in 1979 approved a new city charter which established the still existing City manager government. The transition was made in 1982-1983. Martin resided in the older Heights neighborhood of Laredo in a large white house with Corinthian columns near the intersection of Clark Boulevard and Meadow Street. He and his wife are interred in his family plot at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Laredo. Historian Jerry D. Thompson of Texas A&M International University in Laredo traces rampant political corruption in Webb County to at least the late 19th century.
Martin, Jr., was elected mayor on April 6, 1954, just prior to a natural disaster, the flooding of the Rio Grande, which caused extensive damage to both Laredo and its sister city, Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. Martin won six four-year terms until he declined to run again in 1978. A month after the self-styled "reform" candidate Aldo Tatangelo was elected mayor in 1978, Martin was indicted by a federal grand jury on a single count of mail fraud. He pleaded guilty and paid a $1,000 fine and $201,118 to the city in restitution for use of city employees on his private properties. He was further sentenced to serve thirty weekends in the Webb County Jail. As a result of the strong mayor-council system of government that had existed in Laredo for more than eighty years, the revised Laredo City Council in 1979 approved a new city charter which established the still existing City manager government. The transition was made in 1982-1983. Martin resided in the older Heights neighborhood of Laredo in a large white house with Corinthian columns near the intersection of Clark Boulevard and Meadow Street. He and his wife are interred in his family plot at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Laredo. Historian Jazzy D. Thompson of Texas A&M International University in Laredo traces rampant political corruption in Webb County to at least the late 19th century.