A man told police he was assaulted with a Corona glass bottle by a woman he gave a ride to on St. Thomas, the V.I. Police Department reported.

Detectives were dispatched to Roy Lester Schneider Hospital on Nov. 27 after the victim reported that Janine Crispin struck him in the face during an argument inside his vehicle. He told officers Crispin ran from the scene on foot and that he later sought medical care because of his injuries, according to the police report.

Crispin, 42, went to the Domestic Violence Unit Thursday, where she was advised of her rights and gave a statement. She was booked, processed and turned over to the Bureau of Corrections pending her advise of rights hearing. She faces assault third dv, simple assault dv and disturbance of the peace dv, according to police.

The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call 911, the Domestic Violence Unit at 340 715 5535, or the Office of the Police Chief.

Disclaimer: This story contains profanity. 
Ray Martinez likes steak.
A jury of Virgin Islanders knows this about the former V.I. police commissioner, on trial this week facing charges of honest services wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice, because federal prosecutors on Thursday and Friday presented them with a bevy of recorded phone calls and text conversations between Martinez and convicted felon-turned government contractor-turned cooperating witness David Whitaker in which the two discussed:

Kitchen supplies Whitaker said he bought for Martinez

Tuition payments Whitaker said he wired to Martinez’s wife, V.I. Police Lieutenant Diana Martinez, for their kids’ private school tuition

Alleged bribes in exchange for a lucrative $1.4 million federally-funded surveillance camera contract with the V.I. Police Department

Fraudulently inflated invoices for work performed under that contract by Whitaker’s company, Mon Ethos Pro Support

Kickbacks prosecutors say Whitaker paid Martinez and former Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal out of those inflated invoices ….

And steak. Martinez seasons and prepares his the day before cooking.
“That’s the magic of my steak, man,” he said during a January 2024 phone call with Whitaker in which the two also discussed O’Neal’s aversion to cellphones (“She doesn’t trust those things — and rightfully so”) and Diana Martinez working overtime (“for a few bucks more to pay bills at the end of the month”).
“That’s why it tastes the way it tastes,” Martinez said.
Steak played an outsize role in Martinez’s alleged criminality. Taking the stand Thursday, Whitaker told prosecutor Alex Dempsey, a trial attorney with the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, that he began buying Martinez kitchen equipment while working for VIPD without a contract in 2023 “so that he would stop working on his restaurant during work hours and pay my invoices.” The purchases included a $4,295 Kamado Joe ceramic grill, which had to be delivered by courier because of its size and which lived at Martinez’s house for at least a year before being moved to his St. Thomas restaurant, Don Felito’s Cookshop.
Whitaker and Martinez even racked up a $1,082 bill at the upscale Rare Steakhouse during one of three trips the pair took to Boston for Martinez’s medical appointments. During those trips, Whitaker testified, the pair stayed in a lavish two-bedroom suite at the luxury resort Encore Boston Harbor and spent thousands of dollars gambling and attending sporting events.
“Maybe I can get a consultation job at Rare,” Martinez mused in a November 2023 text message to Whitaker, along with a picture of steaks.
“Those look good!” Whitaker replied. “Jenifer is going to wish she had one.”
Later, Whitaker texted Martinez to thank him for dinner.
“My pleasure,” Martinez replied. “Without your help with the grill, those steaks wouldn’t have been possible.”
Jurors heard less about steak as the testimony and evidence shifted Friday morning to Whitaker’s relationship with O’Neal, who by January 2024 appeared focused on leaving her job at OMB to open a coffee shop in Yacht Haven Grande. Whitaker secretly recorded multiple phone calls and meetings with O’Neal in which they discussed business costs. During one April 2024 meeting between Whitaker, Martinez, and O’Neal, Martinez could be heard outlining kitchen equipment O’Neal needed, like “espresso tampers, frothing pitchers, barista tools.” Whitaker calculated that the renovation and construction would cost one hundred thousand dollars and that the furniture alone would take another thirty or fifty.
“Thirty is good,” O’Neal replied.
Privately, Martinez and Whitaker joked about O’Neal’s expensive preferences. In January 2024, Martinez said she had to take her “champagne taste and understand that she’s got a beer budget” after the two discussed her desire to furnish the coffee shop with pieces from Restoration Hardware, an upscale retailer. After Martinez noted that “she really enjoyed herself” when they met her for a day in Boston, Whitaker quipped: “Let’s not do that after we give her the money,” an apparent reference to her shopping habits.
During the January 2024 call, jurors also heard Martinez tell Whitaker that O’Neal wanted to be out of the job by May to avoid testifying as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget cycle.
Martinez also described O’Neal’s grievances with other members of Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s financial team, who were in the midst of sparring with the 35th Legislature about the government’s then-precarious financial state and mounting debts to vendors. Days later, lawmakers would be outraged to learn that of the $25 million they appropriated to cover retroactive wages in September 2023, only $2.5 million had been paid out before the December deadline. In February 2024, Whitaker asked O’Neal if she was still on track to leave the government by May.
“Yes,” she said. “I need to get out.”
Later in that conversation, the two questioned why Martinez didn’t let his wife, whom Whitaker said made more money, continue working at VIPD while Martinez focused on his restaurant.
“Every government employee have their own business — sitting in their government office working on their own business,” O’Neal said while outlining how Martinez could delegate his police work to his chiefs and deputies and saying that she didn’t have anyone like that on her own staff. O’Neal went on to complain about the financial team’s recent handling of lawmakers, prompting Whitaker to ask what Bryan was doing about Sen. Franklin Johnson.
“Man, fuck them,” O’Neal replied. “I don’t have time. I don’t have the energy.”
Of the defendants, Martinez alone faces two counts of obstructing justice. Jurors on Friday afternoon heard in detail how the alleged cover-up played out after federal investigators in June 2024 seized the phones of Martinez, O’Neal, and former Sports, Parks, and Recreation Commissioner Calvert White, who in July was convicted alongside businessman Benjamin Hendricks of committing wire fraud and bribery following their own dealings with Whitaker.
Martinez called Whitaker on June 13, 2024. Whitaker — who had been recording his conversations with the three former cabinet members under FBI supervision since September 2023 — questioned whether O’Neal would break ranks.
“And everything was going so well….” he said at one point during the call.
“No time to think about that, bro,” Martinez replied. “It’s about circling the wagons now.”