U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona slapped yesterday a 90-day prison sentence against Adrian Atalig Mendiola, a retired police lieutenant who was convicted of poaching federally protected Mariana fruit bats on Rota in 2008.<\/p>\n
Manglona allowed Mendiola to self-report to the U.S. Marshals so he could start serving his sentence. After serving his sentence, Mendiola will be placed on six months of supervised release.<\/p>\n
Mendiola was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and $10 court assessment fee. He was required to perform 100 hours of community service, such as participation in the Division of Fish and Wildlife\u2019s community outreach education program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe young and old people should respect the very rare species. They [endangered species] need to be protected completely,\u201d Manglona said.<\/p>\n
She noted that Mendiola is a retired police officer who had sworn to uphold the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou violated the law. In this case, it\u2019s a federal law,\u201d the judge told Mendiola.<\/p>\n
Before the sentence was handed down, Mendiola was given a chance to speak. He spoke in Chamorro.<\/p>\n
Some 16 individuals, including the Rota mayor, pleaded for a lenient sentence.<\/p>\n
In May 2011, the jury found Mendiola guilty of unlawful possession of a threatened wildlife, but not guilty of unlawful receipt or acquisition of a threatened wildlife.<\/p>\n
Mendiola\u2019s lawyer, Ramon Quichocho, had recommended a probation sentence with conditions. Quichocho said that probation affords adequate deterrence to criminal conduct and protects the public from further crimes. He said probation and a combination of conditions would adequately reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and afford just punishment.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Schuler recommended a six-month prison term, saying a message should be sent to the public about the real consequences that await offenders, particularly retired law enforcement officers, that knowingly violate the endangered species law.<\/p>\n
Schuler introduced in court yesterday a video documentary titled Fanihi that discusses the importance of the Mariana fruit bat to the island of Rota and the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Manglona told Schuler that the 16-minute video \u201cspoke well enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona slapped yesterday a 90-day prison sentence against Adrian Atalig Mendiola, a retired police lieutenant who was convicted of poaching federally protected Mariana fruit bats on Rota in 2008.<\/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-155402","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\/155402","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=155402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}