{"id":192989,"date":"2015-03-03T04:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=192989"},"modified":"2015-03-03T04:00:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T18:00:39","slug":"rapadas-vows-tolerance-favoritism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rapadas-vows-tolerance-favoritism\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapadas vows no tolerance for favoritism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newly sworn in Chief Prosecutor Leonardo M. Rapadas vowed yesterday to promote a culture of intolerance for favoritism during his term.<\/p>\n

\"Leonardo<\/a>
Leonardo M. Rapadas takes his oath as chief prosecutor before Chief Justice Alexandro Castro at the CNMI Supreme Court yesterday afternoon. Also in the photo witnessing the swearing in are Rapadas\u2019 wife and friends, along with Attorney General Edward Manibusan and Office of the Attorney General staff. (Ferdie De La Torre)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview shortly after Chief Justice Alexandro Castro administered his oath in a brief ceremony at the CNMI Supreme Court, Rapadas said favoritism is not going to happen under his and Attorney General Edward Manibusan\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy previous position has proven that and I look forward with the AG on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rapadas served as U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Districts of Guam and the NMI from 2003 to 2010. He also served as Guam attorney general from 2011 to 2015.<\/p>\n

He disclosed that the OAG is going to be filing more criminal cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to instill in the public great confidence in the Attorney General\u2019s Office and in law enforcement in general,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rapadas said he is used to a larger caseload and one of the things he would do at the OAG\u2019s Criminal Division is to take a look at the caseload and see what they can do to increase that.<\/p>\n

He said there are a number of things they can work on to build a better relationship with the Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement agencies on the islands.<\/p>\n

Of his new position, Rapadas said he served the people of the CNMI in a different capacity many years ago and that he\u2019s very happy and honored to be asked by first CNMI elected attorney general, Manibusan, to serve as chief prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor for me. I\u2019m looking forward to the work. There\u2019s a lot of work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Manibusan said he\u2019s happy that they were able to get Rapadas as chief prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need people with experience and real motivation, motivated to do work,\u201d said Manibusan, who attended the swearing in, along with other OAG prosecutors and staff.<\/p>\n

Manibusan disclosed that they want to reach the minimum of at least nine prosecutors for the Criminal Division.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting there. In the next few months we will probably have nine prosecutors altogether,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Manibusan also revealed that they are going to get a chief of the OAG\u2019s Civil Division, and another attorney for the Criminal Division who will handle other cases not normally handled by the office.<\/p>\n

He reiterated his earlier promise to make the OAG the best law firm not only in the CNMI but also in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is to make sure that this community is safe and secure so that people can have better lives. That\u2019s where we\u2019re going and we\u2019re almost at that point,\u201d Manibusan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newly sworn in Chief Prosecutor Leonardo M. Rapadas vowed yesterday to promote a culture of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":192992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,2520,86,67],"class_list":["post-192989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-criminal-division","tag-oag","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192989","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=192989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}