Former police officer Florencio Q. Richards, one of four participants in the Drug Offender Re-entry Program, was sanctioned with jail time for using methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d again.<\/p>\n
At a revocation hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona revoked Richards\u2019 supervised release and sentenced him to a term of time served.<\/p>\n
Richards was placed on 24 months of supervised release.<\/p>\n
During the supervised release, the defendant is required to, among other conditions, participate in a substance abuse treatment program, refrain from using or possessing controlled substance any alcoholic beverages, and perform 100 hours of community work service.<\/p>\n
According to the minutes of Wednesday\u2019s hearing, attorney Michael Dotts, counsel for Richards, argued regarding defendant\u2019s employment and participation in the Drug Offender Re-entry Program, in spite of the missteps.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Garth Backe, counsel for the U.S. government, had no objection to a time served sentence.<\/p>\n
Manglona also noted that Richards had admitted to violating his conditions of supervised release back on Dec. 8, 2015.<\/p>\n
At the DORE hearing on Tuesday, Manglona sanctioned Richards for his violation and remanded him to the custody of the U.S. Marshal.<\/p>\n
Manglona ordered Richards to appear at the revocation hearing set last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Richards told the judge that he wants to continue participating with DORE Program.<\/p>\n
The next DORE Program session will be on April 19 at 3:30pm.<\/p>\n
During Tuesday\u2019s session, U.S. Probation Officer Gregory Arriola informed the DORE Team regarding Richards testing presumptive positive for his drug test prior to that day\u2019s session.<\/p>\n
Arriola also disclosed that Richards had failed to appear for his drug testing on Feb. 28, 2016.<\/p>\n
Arriola also revealed that Richards\u2019 employer stated that the defendant was given a verbal warning regarding his attendance.<\/p>\n
Manglona and DORE Team members advised Richards regarding being honest about his actions.<\/p>\n
Richards admitted to using \u201cice\u201d apparently due to stress resulting from transportation issues, change in work schedules, and having to attend counseling sessions.<\/p>\n
Richards apologized to the members of DORE Team.<\/p>\n
Manglona told Richards that his honesty may have saved him from severe consequences.<\/p>\n
Manglona accepted the recommendation by the DORE Team that it make a finding that Richards has not been in compliance with his terms of supervised release.<\/p>\n
The judge also accepted DORE Team\u2019s recommendation not to grant Richards with credit of one month for his participation in the DORE Program.<\/p>\n
At last December\u2019s revocation hearing, Richards admitted to the allegations that he used \u201cice\u201d again and committed other violations while on supervised release. <\/p>\n
Richards admitted to violating his conditions of supervised release and stated he had just started a new job at a gasoline station.<\/p>\n
In August 2011, the federal court sentenced Richards to 24 months in prison for distributing \u201cice\u201d while he was still an active officer.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 30, 2014, Manglona revoked the supervised release of Richards and sent him to three months in prison with credit for time served for using \u201cice\u201d again.<\/p>\n
The judge ordered that after serving the three months in prison, the defendant will be placed on 33 months of supervised release. <\/p>\n
In December 2014, the court revoked Richards\u2019 supervised release and slapped him with a nine-month prison term for violating his probation by repeatedly using \u201cice.\u201d He was then placed on 24 months of supervised release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former police officer Florencio Q. Richards, one of four participants in the Drug Offender Re-entry…<\/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":[10512,2399,3936,2442],"class_list":["post-223936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dore","tag-during-tuesday","tag-garth-backe","tag-michael-dotts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223936","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=223936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}