Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has denied a motion filed by Tilford S. Toves to suppress the statements he gave police officers after being arrested for alleged trafficking of methamphetamine or \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an order on Wednesday, Camacho found the testimonies of police officers Francis Manglona and Paul Ogumoro to be credible and ruled that what they did to Toves was a standard arrest.<\/p>\n
Camacho said the officers holstered their guns as soon as it was clear that Toves was complying with the arrest.<\/p>\n
The judge noted that when Toves was taken to the Drug Enforcement Administration office on Saipan, his handcuffs were removed, and the officers allowed him to eat and drink.<\/p>\n
In addition, based on testimony, Camacho said he finds that Toves was not misled or deceived by Ogumoro.<\/p>\n
Camacho said Ogumoro not only read through the waiver of rights form with Toves, but he also allowed him to scratch out a signature and make a correction on the form.<\/p>\n
Toves is a former Rota Finance Procurement and Supply acting administrator.<\/p>\n
In June 2014, police officers arrested Toves and then-Commonwealth Health Center administrative staff Berlinda C. Flawau for alleged trafficking of \u201cice\u201d on Rota.<\/p>\n
The two\u2019s arrest came about after police discovered, through a confidential source, that Flawau allegedly sent a package to Toves containing 20 baggies of \u201cice\u201d from Saipan to Rota on June 11, 2014.<\/p>\n
Officers allegedly seized $1,000 worth of \u201cice\u201d during the operation.<\/p>\n
The Office of the Attorney General charged Toves with attempted illegal possession of a controlled substance, conspiracy to commit trafficking of a controlled substance, and restriction upon the use of a government vehicle.<\/p>\n
Toves, through assistant public defender Matthew Meyer, filed a motion to suppress his statements.<\/p>\n
Meyer argued, among other things, that Toves was unnecessarily coerced and intimidated by Rota police, who arrested him with guns drawn.<\/p>\n
In the government\u2019s opposition, Chief Prosecutor Leonardo Rapadas asserted that Toves\u2019 constitutional rights were not violated as DPS personnel did not interrogate him while on Rota; DPS repeatedly asked him whether he understood each of his constitutional rights from a \u201cWaiver of Rights\u201d form, which he answered \u201cyes\u201d and initialed next to each question.<\/p>\n
At the hearing on the motion last Friday, the court heard the testimonies of Manglona, Ogumoro, and Toves.<\/p>\n
In denying the motion, Camacho said that based on a totality of the circumstances, Toves knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights.<\/p>\n
Camacho said Toves initialed each line of the waiver form, and ultimately signed the bottom of the form.<\/p>\n
Then, the judge noted, Toves began to voluntarily answer Ogumoro\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus, the defendant\u2019s statements to officer Ogumoro were made knowingly and voluntarily,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has denied a motion filed by Tilford S….<\/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":[2626,35,2815,1195],"class_list":["post-195528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-attorney-general","tag-dps","tag-drug-enforcement-administration","tag-matthew-meyer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195528","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=195528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}