July 28, 2025

Jury selection in Roberto trial now on its fifth day

The jury selection in the federal jury trial of former acting CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife director Raymond Borja Roberto enters its fifth day today—said to be the longest jury selection in the CNMI so far.

With no jury empanelled yesterday, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona will resume the selection process at 8am today.

There are 57 prospective jurors left, Saipan Tribune learned.

As this developed, Manglona yesterday granted the U.S. government’s motion to prevent Roberto from submitting some exhibits due to discovery violation and notice of alibi violation.

Manglona prevented Roberto from introducing his passport and other items in his exhibit list.

The items include travel authorization from Saipan to American Samoa from March 7, 2013, to March 15, 2013, Roberto’s boarding passes, his United Mileage Plus statement, agenda of the 48th meeting of the Western Pacific Fisheries Information Network in American Samoa, and others.

Assistant U.S. attorney Rami S. Badawy asked the court to preclude Roberto from introducing these documents because Roberto failed to disclose those items until after 12pm, Tuesday, the second day of trial, despite the prosecution’s prior requests for reciprocal discovery and demands for notice of alibi.

In Roberto’s opposition to the motion, attorney David J. Lujan said the evidence that the U.S. government wants to hide from the jury shows that the defendant was not on Saipan from March 7, 2014, to March 15, 2014.

Lujan said one of the alleged victim alleged that Roberto had had sex with her on March 12, 2014, and on March 13, 2014.

“It is clear that the government is more interested in scoring a conviction in complete disregard for the evidence in this case as opposed to serving the ends of justice,” Lujan said.

The indictment alleged that Roberto persuaded three underage girls to have sex with him from March 1, 2013, to July 18, 2013. In the witness tampering case, it was alleged that while Roberto was detained pending trial, he attempted to influence the testimony of an individual on April 24, 2014.

0 thoughts on “Jury selection in Roberto trial now on its fifth day

  1. Characterizing it as evidence “the government wants to hide” is incredibly disingenuous. The defendant had a deadline to comply with and he chose to ignore it. In most jurisdictions, this kind of behavior would be malpractice per se (if it is the fault of the defense attorney), but out here I doubt anything will come of it.

    1. The fact of the matter is that the Federal Prosecution is charging Mr. Roberto with a serious crime that is based on testimonies from Mr. Roberto’s accusers. The accusers have provided detailed account of the alleged incident that are documented by specific locations, dates and times. I don’t see the harm in providing factual documents to the court that prove otherwise that the accusers are either falsifying their statements or are mentally unstable. Either way Mr. Roberto is merely presenting factual evidence proving he wasn’t around when the alleged incident occurred and the prosecutions are really pissed off now and request that such critical evidence be removed because there is no way in hell they would be able to receive logical explanation from the alleged victims under oath. How do you explain specific dates of alleged incident when the accused was off-island at the time??? The defense should immediately move to have the case dismissed without further delay!

  2. It clearly shows the victim in this case is Roberto. What he is purporting to submit is hard evidence that he wasn’t even on island when the “alleged assault” happened. this proves that the minors are lying…it just makes me wonder how they will explain this discrepancy during the trial..perhaps their coach, Mr. Badawy, will have something to say about it. We shall see….

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