Police re-arrested yesterday afternoon lawyers Reynaldo O. Yana and Antonio M. Atalig after the two were \u201cwrongfully released\u201d by the Department of Corrections Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Police picked up Yana and Atalig at their respective homes on Saipan after Superior Court associate judge Kenneth Govendo issued yesterday a bench warrant for their arrest.<\/p>\n
Govendo issued the warrant after learning that, after he remanded Yana and Atalig into custody Thursday morning, DOC immediately released them.<\/p>\n
Govendo directed DPS Commissioner Claudio K. Norita to arrest the two lawyers and bring them to DOC. He imposed a $1,288,500 bail each for the lawyers\u2019 release.<\/p>\n
Yana and Atalig were brought before Superior Court associate judge David Wiseman for a bail hearing yesterday at 3pm.<\/p>\n
Wiseman explained to the two that Govendo issued the bench warrant after DOC \u201cwrongfully released them\u201d on the day Govendo remanded them back to jail.<\/p>\n
Yana explained that DOC released them because Govendo\u2019s previous order directed them to spend 30 days in jail.<\/p>\n
Yana said by April 24 (Thursday) at 10:30am they were already in detention for 30 days.<\/p>\n
Yana said that DOC should not be blamed because Govendo\u2019s order as received by DOC set a 30-day sentence.<\/p>\n
But Wiseman read the written order issued by Govendo shortly after Thursday\u2019s hearing that remanded them into custody.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were wrongfully released by DOC,\u201d Wiseman told Yana and Atalig.<\/p>\n
Wiseman emphasized that Govendo\u2019s order set no fixed jail term and remanded the two lawyers to DOC.<\/p>\n
Atalig said he wants to put on record that their release was not either DOC\u2019s or their fault.<\/p>\n
The judge responded: \u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s your fault at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked by Saipan Tribune for comment, Atalig lambasted Govendo for issuing an order directing them to spend 30 days in jail and later changing his decision without informing DOC.<\/p>\n
Yana refused to comment.<\/p>\n
During Thursday\u2019s review hearing, Govendo threw back Yana and Atalig to jail for their continued failure to return $1.3 million in attorneys\u2019 fees that they received in the controversial Angel Malite estate probate.<\/p>\n
On March 28, Govendo issued the contempt order against the two lawyers and ordered them to be imprisoned until they disgorged the $1.3 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police re-arrested yesterday afternoon lawyers Reynaldo O. Yana and Antonio M. Atalig after the two were \u201cwrongfully released\u201d by the Department of Corrections Thursday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}