Former Division of Sports and Recreation deputy director John Benavente Reyes Jr., who has a pending criminal case for possession of illegal drugs, was arrested again Friday morning on the same charge and for reckless driving.<\/p>\n
Reyes, 36, was taken to Superior Court yesterday on charges of illegal possession of a controlled substance and reckless driving. His bail was set at $2,250 cash. Preliminary hearing is on Feb. 10 at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n
Assistant public defender Michael Sato was appointed as counsel for Reyes. Assistant attorney general Chester Hinds appeared for the government at the bail hearing.<\/p>\n
Police detective Catherine B. Pangelinan stated in her report she was driving along Beach Road in Chalan Kanoa on Friday at 10:56am when she saw a blue car by Viva Poker heading north on the outer lane.<\/p>\n
Pangelinan said the blue car, which she later found to be a Lexus with license plate ACH-868 and being driven by Reyes, accelerated and made a sudden switch to the inner lane, cutting off a vehicle in front. It then again made a sudden switch to the outer lane, causing a near collision with the same vehicle on the outer lane.<\/p>\n
The Lexus again switched back to the inner lane, nearly hitting the front of a pickup truck by Dial-Rent-To-Own.<\/p>\n
Pangelinan said she made a U-turn in front of Bobby\u2019s Market, followed the Lexus and pulled it over near the Moon Night Store.<\/p>\n
Pangelinan said as she explained the reason for the violator stop, Reyes immediately replied that the other car almost hit his vehicle.<\/p>\n
Pangelinan cited Reyes for reckless driving, unsafe lane change, and failing to signal. She then arrested him.<\/p>\n
Another detective found in Reyes\u2019 front pocket a small ziplock bag that contained a white crystalline substance. The detective said the substance later tested presumptive positive for methamphetamine or \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
During an inventory of the car, a detective found a branch of marijuana inside the glove compartment. A corrections officer also found in Reyes\u2019 pouch a cut straw with the residue of a white crystalline substance.<\/p>\n
Last Oct. 10, police arrested Reyes for alleged possession of \u201cice\u201d and marijuana at a parking lot of a store in San Jose.<\/p>\n
At a preliminary hearing, Associate Judge Joseph Camacho dismissed one count of possession of \u201cice\u201d and one count of possession of marijuana.<\/p>\n
The judge, however, found probable cause to charge Reyes with one count of possession of \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to court records, Reyes had several prior traffic cases, mostly for violating the speed limit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Division of Sports and Recreation deputy director John Benavente Reyes Jr., who has a…<\/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":[162,1609,1610,1611],"class_list":["post-190891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-car","tag-michael-sato","tag-moon-night-store","tag-viva-poker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190891","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=190891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}