Staten Island man commits murder to get even after victim had spit in wife’s face, cops say (BLOG)

A Staten Island man who beat a murder rap more than a decade ago is back in the can after surveillance camera footage showed him using a gun to get even - permanently - with a neighbor, police said.

Asim Martinez, 32, committed murder in a rage after his neighbor, Tracy Francis, spit in Martinez's wife's face, a law enforcement source told the Daily News Wednesday.

Martinez, seeking to avenge the disgusting slight of his wife, found Francis inside his apartment building on Park Hill Ave. in Stapleton about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 3.

He shot Francis a dozen times, a police source said.

But he picked a bad spot for murder: the entire incident was filmed on the building's surveillance camera, authorities said.

Police collared Martinez Wednesday on Marcy Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, after he once again turned to violence to punish a man who had wronged a woman in his life. This time, Martinez stabbed a man in the neck with an ice pick after he had slapped Martinez's female cousin, a police source said.

Martinez was arrested in the summer of 1999 for allegedly shooting David Walker, 19, to death on a basketball court at Staten Island's Stapleton Houses.

He was set free after a grand jury empaneled under then-District Attorney William Murphy opted not to indict him.

Martinez now faces charges of murder and weapons possession, said a spokesman for Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan Jr.