Yuliu Liu and Zhenlin Fang, the two overstaying Chinese tourists who were indicted in the seizure of over 10,700 grams of methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d worth about $3.2 million to $4.3 million, have pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n
During Friday\u2019s arraignment, Liu and Fang, through their counsels, waived the formal advisement of their constitutional rights and the reading of the charges against them.<\/p>\n
The two pleaded not guilty to the indictment that charged them with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather Kennedy set the jury trial for Oct. 27, 2015.<\/p>\n
Liu, through his lawyer, also pleaded not guilty to a separate indictment that charged him with possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
Kennedy set Liu\u2019s jury trial for Oct. 29, 2015.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Ross Naughton, counsel for the U.S. government, moved to unseal the cases and stated that it was not the prosecution\u2019s intent to seal the indictments.<\/p>\n
The judge granted the motion.<\/p>\n
Attorney Steven Pixley is court-appointed counsel for Fang. Attorney Mark Hanson is court-appointed counsel for Liu in both cases.<\/p>\n
Attorney Benjamin Petersburg appeared as counsel for Liu on behalf of Hanson.<\/p>\n
A Customs inspector detected the \u201cice\u201d inside an air compressor in a container from Guangzhou, China, at the seaport warehouse on Saipan last July 17. That discovery led federal and local law enforcers to make a follow-up investigation that ended with the arrest last July 22 of Liu and Fang and the discovery of 130 more grams of \u201cice\u201d from Liu\u2019s house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yuliu Liu and Zhenlin Fang, the two overstaying Chinese tourists who were indicted in the…<\/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":[6783,5016,6337,6762],"class_list":["post-209464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-attorney-benjamin-petersburg","tag-attorney-mark-hanson","tag-attorney-steven-pixley","tag-during-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209464","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=209464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}