U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has granted the U.S. government\u2019s request to hold a hearing to determine whether habitual offender Gilbert Kaipat is competent to stand trial. <\/p>\n
Kaipat is facing charges both in federal and local courts over the burglary at the house of Superior Court Associate Judge Kenneth L. Govendo where he allegedly stole the judge\u2019s gun and ammunition.<\/p>\n
Manglona set the hearing for March 8, 2016, on the U.S. government\u2019s motion for psychiatric or psychological evaluation to determine Kaipat\u2019s competency to stand trial.<\/p>\n
Manglona on Tuesday granted the U.S. government\u2019s request to vacate the March 8, 2016, trial date due to concerns of defendant\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n
The judge said she will reset the trial date after a decision on the motion to determine defendant\u2019s competency is ruled upon.<\/p>\n
After the hearing on Tuesday, Kaipat was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal. <\/p>\n
Attorney Colin Thompson, counsel for Kaipat, did not oppose the government\u2019s request.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Russell H. Lorfing, counsel for the government, also stated that Kaipat\u2019s real name based on his birth certificate is \u201cCling Philip Kaipat\u201d and that he will file a superseding indictment to correct the name.<\/p>\n
Court documents use the names \u201cPhilip Kaipat\u201d and \u201cCling Kaipat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lorfing requested the court to commit Kaipat to the custody of the Office of the Attorney General for placement in a facility in order to be evaluated by a psychiatrist or psychologist who will determine whether he is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him incompetent to stand trial.<\/p>\n
Lorfing said there is evidence suggesting that the defendant may have mental issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has granted the U.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":[3474,2626,8025,8675],"class_list":["post-221756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-attorney-colin-thompson","tag-attorney-general","tag-cling-philip-kaipat","tag-gilbert-kaipat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221756","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=221756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}