Ex-CUC chair’s son pleads guilty to four charges

The second defendant indicted in federal court for conspiring to use and forge credit cards and checks that were stolen from a postal office entered a guilty plea yesterday.

John Richard Palacios Guerrero pleaded guilty to the indictment charging him with one count of conspiracy to receive and possess stolen mail and three counts of possession of stolen mail.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Alex R. Munson accepted Guerrero’s plea and set the sentencing for July 11, 2006.

Munson granted the defendant’s request to modify the conditions of his temporary liberty by allowing him to observe a 6pm to 6am daily curfew instead of home confinement.

Guerrero, son of former Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board chair Frank Guerrero, told the court that he and co-defendant Gary Lee Castro Pangelinan conspired to steal the mail from the postal office in Capitol Hill, tried to use the credit cards, and altered the checks.

Assistant U.S. attorney Jamie Bowers said Pangelinan admitted committing the crimes and that John Guerrero’s girlfriend also confessed she was a witness to it.

Bowers stated in the indictment that between Oct. 27, 2005 and Nov. 10, 2005, Guerrero and Pangelinan conspired to possess mail matter that had been stolen from the U.S. Mail Office.

Bowers said the object of the conspiracy was to receive and use checks and credit cards stolen from the U.S. Mail Office to unlawfully obtain cash and items of value from various businesses in the CNMI.

He said that between Oct. 27, 2005 and Nov. 10, 2005, defendants possessed mail matter stolen from the Capitol Hill Rural Branch Contract Postal Unit Mail Branch, including various personal checks, business checks and credit cards that belonged to other individuals.

CHRB is an authorized depository for U.S. Mail on Saipan.

The prosecutor said the defendants possessed a letter containing two First Premier Bank and Visa credit cards, addressed to Wilfred Joseph Asanuma.

He said that in that period, the defendants possessed a stolen parcel containing replacement First Hawaiian Bank checks, addressed to Joanne T. Deleon Guerrero.

The lawyer said that in the same period the defendants possessed a stolen letter containing a personal First Hawaiian Bank check belonging to and written by Fe A. Cepeda.

Guerrero was first arrested during a reported break-in at MidPac Micronesia Building in Gualo Rai on Dec. 30, 2005.

Last month, Pangelinan also entered a guilty plea. His sentencing was set for June 13, 2006.