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AGO refuses to release pickup truck
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Posted on Sep 23 1999
Assistant Atty. General James Benedetto opposed yesterday a defendant’s request for the Superior Court to release a pickup truck seized by the government as evidence in a multiple-crime case involving seven young men.
The pickup truck, according to Benedetto, was used by arresting officers to transport the defendants from the place where they were arrested. This was the same truck where the police had found the items allegedly used by the defendants in committing the crime.
The pickup truck is allegedly owned by the father-in-law of one of the defendants, Melvin Basa.
Benedetto said the government has already released other personal items found in the truck. Those items included school enrollment papers belonging to Basa’s children. These items, Benedetto said, had been released as they were “not related to the case.”
Other items seized by agents of the Department of Public Safety included a rifle and a knife used by the defendants in stabbing persons they had robbed during a “crime spree” last July.
Benedetto said the government will have to complete the test on the bloodstains in the truck before releasing it to the owner.
The government, Benedetto added, did not want to release the truck prior to the trial lest it result in the exoneration of the defendants.
Benedetto also said the defendants “cited no rule that would give the court authority to release legally obtained evidence prior to trial.”
The defendants, Melvin Basa, Jeffrey Basa, Frankie Basa, Jeronimo Ada, Peter Pangelinan, Isaac Charfaurous and Joaquin Crisostomo, are facing 37 counts of criminal charges in connection with a riot in Koblerville.
They allegedly went on a rampage on July 11, and caused destruction to several properties and injuries to several victims.
They were charged with kidnapping, assault and battery, robbery and illegal carrying of firearm, among others.
They allegedly abducted a Chinese businessman on board a pickup truck, hit another victim with a baseball club, and stabbed others.
They smashed the window of a karaoke house and the telephone box in front of the establishment. (MCM)
