A man who pleaded guilty over the stealing of two Apple iPads and two Apple iPhones from the mail, was sentenced yesterday in federal court to two years of probation.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona noted that defendant Randy A. Sablan immediately took responsibility by admitting to the crime.<\/p>\n
Manglona ordered the 35-year-old Sablan to perform 50 hours of community work service, pay $119.99 in restitution to one victim, and pay a $25 special assessment fee.<\/p>\n
The judge urged Sablan to consider speaking to students or other members in the community about his experience in using methamphetamine or \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manglona said she was actually thinking of imposing only one year of probation, but decided to impose two years of probation because of defendant having a drug issue.<\/p>\n
Manglona asked Sablan to encourage anyone close to him that is using \u201cice\u201d to bring that person to drug counseling.<\/p>\n
Manglona told Sablan that he better not lose his job.<\/p>\n
Sablan is currently working at Best Sunshine International, Ltd.<\/p>\n
Manglona dismissed the remaining charges as part of the plea agreement.<\/p>\n
Before the sentence was handed down, Sablan apologized to the court for the crime that he committed. He said he brought shame to his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, it will not happen again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Russell Lorfing, counsel for the U.S. government, said they joined the U.S. Probation\u2019s recommendation that there is no need to impose incarceration on Sablan.<\/p>\n
Lorfing said a two-year probation is \u201csufficient\u201d but \u201cnot greater than necessary\u201d to comply with the purposes of sentencing.<\/p>\n
Attorney Benjamin Petersburg, counsel for Sablan, also recommended a probation sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a family man, and currently employed,\u201d Petersburg said, adding that defendant\u2019s conduct in this case was due to his involvement in \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorney Bruce Berline, Petersburg\u2019s co-counsel for Sablan, in court documents said \u201cice\u201d changed Sablan\u2019s behavior and brought him into contact with users, dealers, and other bad influences.<\/p>\n
Berline said Sablan has been undergoing counseling during his pretrial release and has had very positive results.<\/p>\n
Berline said Sablan is currently employed and supporting his family.<\/p>\n
On the restitution issue, Berline said one victim was made whole in that he received two iPads from the retailer.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Berline said, the two iPads at issue were recovered by authorities.<\/p>\n
Berline said the retailer, Powermax, recovered its losses through USPS insurance and, presumably, the recovered iPads were also returned to Powermax.<\/p>\n
Sablan signed a plea deal with the U.S. government. He pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized mail opening, which carries a maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment, a $100,000 fine, and one-year supervised release.<\/p>\n
According to the factual basis of the plea deal, Sablan opened a piece of mail that was not directed to him and without authority on Nov. 19, 2012.<\/p>\n
The information charged Sablan with two counts of unauthorized mail opening and one count of misuse of postal property.<\/p>\n
According to the information, the package that Sablan opened on Nov. 19, 2012, contained two Apple iPads.<\/p>\n
On April 28, 2013, Sablan unlawfully opened a package that was addressed to a certain postal box. The package contained two Apple iPhones. He stole the two iPhones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man who pleaded guilty over the stealing of two Apple iPads and two Apple…<\/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":[6783,1819,1707,2466],"class_list":["post-223396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-attorney-benjamin-petersburg","tag-attorney-bruce-berline","tag-best-sunshine-international","tag-russell-lorfing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223396","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=223396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}