Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has denied the Office of the Public Defender\u2019s opposition to having him handle the case of Allan Apatang Taitano, a former Rota liaison employee who is facing charges of attempting to sexually assault his then-21-year-old godson.<\/p>\n
Camacho cited Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja\u2019s order on Wednesday, reassigning Taitano\u2019s case to Camacho due to Associate Judge David A. Wiseman\u2019s recusal.<\/p>\n
Camacho also cited Wiseman\u2019s recusal due to off-island training during the same week as the trial.<\/p>\n
The judge noted that Wiseman\u2019s recusal was also faxed to Office of the Public Defender.<\/p>\n
Taitano\u2019s trial will proceed on Oct. 27, 2014. <\/p>\n
Chief Public Defender Douglas Hartig, counsel for the 44-year-old Taitano, said Camacho issued an order on Tuesday, setting the case for a status conference.<\/p>\n
Hartig said Camacho\u2019s order states that the case had been reassigned to him.<\/p>\n
In his opposition to case reassignment, Hartig said the only person with the authority to reassign a case is the presiding judge. Hartig said the order does not indicate that Naraja re-assigned the case, nor is there an order of reassignment, nor any reason given.<\/p>\n
Hartig requested that the case be reassigned back to Wiseman.<\/p>\n
Police arrested Taitano in April 2013 in Dandan for allegedly attempting to sexually assault his godson inside a vehicle in an open field in As Lito. The victim allegedly managed to run away and hide in the jungle for several hours. <\/p>\n
Taitano pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has denied the Office of the Public Defender\u2019s…<\/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":[133],"class_list":["post-182133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182133","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=182133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}