Man who strangled wife gets one-year imprisonment term

The Superior Court has sentenced a man to an imprisonment term of one year after he pleaded guilty to charges related to an incident where he assaulted his wife.

Superior Court Associate Judge Kenneth L. Govendo sentenced Venusto Mangarero to an imprisonment term of one year, all suspended except for 30 days, with credit for 10 days of time served, leaving the defendant with just 20 more days to serve.  

Mangarero, 66, will be released from custody on March 26, and will be placed on supervised probation for two years.

In addition, he will pay a $280 probation fee and perform 60 hours of community service.

Initially, Mangarero was charged with assault and battery, strangulation, and disturbing the peace. He was found guilty of assault and battery; the other charges were dropped as part of a plea deal.

According to court documents, at around 3:55am on Dec. 3, the Department of Public Safety received a call from a witness who reported a woman yelling for help in a white Toyota Tacoma behind the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.

DPS immediately sent out an advisory to all police units to be on the lookout for the vehicle described by the caller. At 4:03am, police located the vehicle in a parking lot of a supermarket in Chalan Piao.

Police noted that Mangarero was seated on the driver side of the truck without a shirt while a woman sat in the front passenger seat appearing emotionally distressed and was avoiding eye contact.

After the officer asked Mangarero if they were okay, he told the officer they were and proceeded to enter the supermarket. With Mangarero gone, the officer asked the woman if she were okay, to which she replied in a shaky voice that Mangarero took her to the “woods” to choke her. When the defendant returned, he was arrested.

Officers also noted that when the victim tried to walk, they saw that she had difficulty putting pressure on her right foot, had a rash on her neck, and blood underneath her right thumb. She claims that Mangarero hurt her foot with the vehicle door and choked her with both his hands, so she scratched his face.

She told another officer that Mangarero accused her of having an affair and hiding his phone from him, adding that she almost blacked out when Mangarero choked her.

Mangarero told police that he and his wife had gone to Obyan Beach to look for bananas. When they got there, he said she asked him why he took her there before trying to get out of the truck.

He said he told his wife not to get out of the truck because it was dark, but she was not listening. So, he said he roughly pushed his wife’s feet into the truck, grabbed her neck with both hands, pushed her into the truck, and told her to stop it. He said they then went to the supermarket.