What to Know
- Marta San Jose had been charged in March with lewd and lascivious behavior for her alleged role in the case.
- San Jose and Dale Leary were arrested after the alleged sexual assault of the then 14-year-old girl was also a foreign exchange student.
Prosecutors on Thursday dropped all charges against a former foreign exchange student who had been accused of molesting a teenager along with her late husband.
Marta San Jose had been charged in March with lewd and lascivious behavior for her alleged role in the case with the state offering the now 21-year-old a special program for first time offenders, which she rejected.
The attorney for San Jose, Jorge Viera, spoke outside the courtroom and said San Jose was a victim of her late husband, Dale Leary.
“My client’s legal nightmare is finally over,” said Viera. “She was manipulated over years, brainwashed over years and abused over years.”
The two were arrested in June after the alleged sexual assault of the then 14-year-old girl was also a foreign exchange student from Spain in 2014.
San Jose herself had come to America as an exchange student two years before from Spain and married Leary – who hosted San Jose and other teens in a foreign exchange program with his ex-wife – shortly before the alleged attacks.
In July, police found Leary and his ex-wife, Claudia, in a car behind his Cutler Bay home. The pair were trying to poison themselves with carbon monoxide, police said. Leary died, but Claudia was hospitalized and later recovered.
Viera blamed the student exchange agency that placed San Jose with Leary, saying that she has not decided whether to stay in South Florida or return to Spain.
