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Alleged overstaying tourist gets 4-day time served sentence
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Posted on Dec 30 2019
An alleged overstaying tourist who pleaded guilty to producing a CNMI driver’s license that he obtained via fraud was sentenced in federal court to four days of time served.
At a sentencing hearing last Friday, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona ordered that Guangjian Deng, a Chinese national, to report to an immigration official for deportation proceedings.
He will also be placed on supervised release of one year and ordered to pay a $100 special assessment fee.
Deng pleaded guilty last Dec. 16 as part of a plea deal to the charge of conspiracy to unlawfully produce an identification document.
U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather L. Kennedy later recommended that Manglona accept the guilty plea.
Mark Hanson served as court-appointed counsel for Deng. Assistant U.S. attorney Garth Backe appeared for the U.S. government.
According to the plea agreement, Deng conspired with another person on June 21, 2017, to unlawfully produce an identification document. The other individual would help Deng obtain a CNMI driver’s license through the submission of false documents to the CNMI Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Deng illegally obtained a CNMI driver’s license on June 21, 2017.
According to Homeland Security Investigations Task Force officer Cristin Duenas, a check with the DHS system revealed that Deng entered the CNMI on Nov. 19, 2016, and was supposed to stay here only until Dec. 1, 2016. DHS records also showed that Deng was administratively arrested on Feb. 22, 2019, and is currently in removal proceedings.
Duenas said that Deng confessed in an interview that he paid a fellow Chinese national $1,500 to help him obtain a CNMI driver’s license.
