U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona handed down yesterday a 14-month prison term against Virgilio R. Patubo, a Filipino who impersonated another person in applying for nonimmigrant documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour conduct shows complete disregard to our country.\u201d Manglona said in handing the higher end of the sentencing guidelines range. \u201cYou have completely disregarded people\u2019s trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patubo was given credit for time served. After completing his prison term, he will be immediately deported.<\/p>\n
Patubo was ordered to pay a $300 special assessment fee.<\/p>\n
Before the sentence was handed down, Patubo was allowed to speak. With a translator beside him, Patubo offered a tearful apology in Tagalog. He admitted committing crimes by using a different name to enter the CNMI.<\/p>\n
He apologized to the court and to the U.S. government. He said with his conduct, he hurt his family and a lot of people, including the real Joseph Roque, the name that he used.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so difficult for me to live a lie for 10 years by using a different name,\u201d Patubo said.<\/p>\n
He said he could not explain to his three minor U.S. children what he did.<\/p>\n
Patubo said he accepts whatever the sentence the court would impose on him.<\/p>\n
Patubo\u2019s three other children from his original wife in the Philippines are now adults.<\/p>\n
The defendant thanked the court for the opportunity to express himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomehow I am free,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In rendering the sentence, Manglona noted that in 2011, 2012, and 2013, Patubo told U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that he was Joseph Mendiola Roque.<\/p>\n
The judge noted that Patubo was convicted in federal court of a very serious offense, distributiona of methamphetamine or \u201cice,\u201d and was sentenced in 1999 to 42 months in prison.<\/p>\n
Manglona said Patubo was subsequently deported from the CNMI in 2002.<\/p>\n
Manglona said when Patubo was removed, he knew he was no longer welcome in any part of the U.S.<\/p>\n
The judge said Patubo came back to Saipan in 2003 on a tourist visa using the name Joseph Mendiola Roque and entered again later as a contract worker.<\/p>\n
Manglona said when he came to Saipan, Patubo later married a woman by not disclosing his real identity to her, and they have three minor children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a sad situation for the three minor children,\u201d Manglona said.<\/p>\n
Last March, federal agents arrested Patubo after an indictment was filed charging him with three counts of false personation in immigration matters. He pleaded guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n
According to the indictment, Patubo impersonated a Joseph Mendiola Roque when applying for a CW-2 visa on Nov. 18, 2011.<\/p>\n
Patubo also passed himself as Roque when applying for a humanitarian parole application on May 19, 2012, and on Feb. 2, 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona handed down yesterday 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":[26,3086,3395,67],"class_list":["post-208455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-joseph-mendiola-roque","tag-last-march","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208455","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=208455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}