Trash not emptying. OS X 10.8

Please help! I recently upgraded my MacBook (from late 2008; aluminum; unibody) to the most recent Mountain Lion software and since I got this as a gift from someone who previously used it, I deleted his User files leaving in the trash only some folders which I found myself unable to delete. I accessed the main data folder from the previous user which was a folder named after the user containing every personal info from him and then I later moved the whole folder (which included some folders that had a red symbol on top which prevented me from accessing them) to the trash (I followed this by emptyng it in a non secure way). When the emptying of the trash process completed, I was questioned whether I would like to continue the deletion process by eliminating every file, even the ones that had the red symbol; I pressed "Continue" and the process was completed.

I was later surprised by the fact that though every file was gone, the original folder named after the old username was still in the trash and it had some empty folders inside that after reaching a certain point, apparently took me to the same original folder and into an infinite loop. I tried emptying it again and it simulated the typical process of emptying and it even made the "trash sound" but did not grant me any solution. The empty folders were still there and the trash icon remained full. I then did the secure empty trash option and was later notified with: "You can’t copy the item “” because its name is too long or includes characters that are invalid on the destination volume.", giving me the chance to press continue (nothing happened, the trash remained empty). The terminal command: "sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash" did not work and I even restarted the computer and this bug was not gone.

I would immensely appreciate any help. I don't have any idea of what might be the problem.