U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona yesterday imposed a three-month prison term on one of the five defendants in the driver\u2019s license scam case.<\/p>\n
After serving the three-month sentence, defendant Hui Qiang Yan will be placed on three months of supervised release. The 48-year-old Yan was also required to pay a $100 court assessment fee and perform 50 hours of community work service.<\/p>\n
Yan will remain out on bail until a federal detention facility is designated for him.<\/p>\n
Manglona said she disagrees with the defendant\u2019s counsel Stephen Woodruff\u2019s position that Yan was less culpable than co-defendant Tahira Miah.<\/p>\n
Manglona said that Yan was involved in dealing with 20 individuals whereas Miah only participated in the transaction with two or three persons.<\/p>\n
The judge said imposing a prison term on Yan is appropriate, not only for the seriousness of the crime but also for the harm or the potential harm he would do to the community.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Garth Backe recommended a sentence of two years probation, while Woodruff recommended one year probation.<\/p>\n
Yan and the four other co-defendants pleaded guilty to a count that charged them with conspiracy to unlawfully produce and transfer an identification document.<\/p>\n
Last week, Manglona slapped a six-month prison term on another defendant, William A. Hocog, a former supervisor at the Department of Public Safety\u2019s Bureau of Motor Vehicle, who pleaded guilty for his role in the driver\u2019s license scam.<\/p>\n
Last Nov. 4, Manglona imposed a two-year probation sentence on Tahira Miah.<\/p>\n
The other co-defendants are Mohammad Jahangir Miah, and Hongmei Sun. <\/p>\n
According to the prosecution, from April 16 to June 18, 2010, the five conspired to unlawfully produce and transfer CNMI driver\u2019s licenses.<\/p>\n
Sun and Yan introduced foreign nationals as driver\u2019s license applicants to the Miah couple in order for the applicants to obtain a driver\u2019s license unlawfully with the help of Hocog, then a supervisor at BMV.<\/p>\n
The applicants were each required to pay between $230 and $400 directly to Sun and Yan in order to receive the driver\u2019s license. (Ferdie de la Torre)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona yesterday imposed a three-month prison term on one of the five defendants in the driver\u2019s license scam case.<\/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-157034","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\/157034","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=157034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}