The federal court has denied Guam attorney David J. Lujan\u2019s motion to transfer to Guam the jury trial of his client, former acting CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife director Raymond Borja Roberto, who is facing charges of witness tampering and enticing three underage girls to engage in prostitution.<\/p>\n
At motions hearing on Wednesday that lasted more than three hours, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona first informed the parties that she has read all the briefs and that her inclination was to deny Roberto\u2019s motion to change the trial\u2019s venue.<\/p>\n
Another private counsel for Roberto, attorney Ignacio Aguigui, who spoke on the phone, argued in support of the defendant\u2019s motion. Attorney Joaquin Torres is also a private counsel for the defendant.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Rami Badawy opposed the motion.<\/p>\n
After hearing all the arguments, Manglona denied Roberto\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n
Lujan had argued that the trial should be moved to the U.S. District Court of Guam because Roberto would be unable to obtain a fair and impartial trial in the NMI.<\/p>\n
Citing several articles in a newspaper (not Saipan Tribune), Lujan said every time a new superseding indictment is entered\u2014in this case three times\u2014the allegations against Roberto have been inaccurately publicized.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public has fallen prey to the inaccurate and sensational reports that the press and the government disseminated,\u201d said Lujan, citing a reader\u2019s comment on a newspaper\u2019s online article (not Saipan Tribune).<\/p>\n
The third superseding indictment filed month charged Roberto with three counts of enticement of a minor and one count of witness tampering.<\/p>\n
In the third superseding indictment, assistant U.S. attorney Badawy alleged that Roberto persuaded three underage girls to have sex with him from March 1, 2013 to July 18, 2013.<\/p>\n
On the witness tampering matter, Badawy stated that this happened on April 24, 2014, while Roberto was detained pending trial, when he attempted to influence the testimony of an individual.<\/p>\n
According to the minutes of Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Manglona also denied Roberto\u2019s motion to dismiss the third superseding indictment for lack of specificity.<\/p>\n
Lujan, who also appeared via phone, argued in support of Roberto\u2019s motion. Assistant U.S. attorney Ross Naughton argued the prosecution\u2019s opposition.<\/p>\n
Manglona also denied Roberto\u2019s amended motion to dismiss the third superseding indictment for insufficiency, failure to state an offense, and lack of jurisdiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The federal court has denied Guam attorney David J. Lujan\u2019s motion to transfer to Guam…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[93,51,257],"class_list":["post-175987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-district-court","tag-guam","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175987","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}