Rota Police Officer Melvin Maratita Manglona and retired U.S. Army Reserve Michael Barry Murphy both pleaded not guilty yesterday to separate charges that they sexually abused minor girls.<\/p>\n
At an arraignment, Manglona, through counsel assistant public defender Cindy Nesbit, pleaded not guilty to the information charging him with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree and one count of disturbing the peace.<\/p>\n
Murphy, through counsel Janet H. King, pleaded not guilty to the information charging him with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree.
\nManglona, 48, and Murphy, 54, both waived reading of their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja set a status conference for Manglona on Oct. 5 at 9am and for Murphy on Oct. 4 at 9am.<\/p>\n
Acting chief prosecutor Barbara Cepeda appeared for the government.<\/p>\n
Manglona and Murphy remain under detention for failing to post $100,000 and $50,000 cash bail, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Office of the Attorney General alleged that Manglona sexually abused a 14-year-old girl last July and Aug. 11, 2016 on Rota. <\/p>\n
Manglona allegedly touched the girl\u2019s private part last Aug. 1, and caused her to have suicidal thoughts from July 2016 to Aug. 11, 2016.<\/p>\n
The girl told police that Manglona has been sexually abusing her since she was 9 years old and that the recent sexual encounter happened just last Aug. 11.<\/p>\n
In Murphy\u2019s case, the OAG alleged that the defendant sexually abused a 4-year-old girl last Aug. 6 on Saipan.<\/p>\n
The OAG is planning to file separate charges against Murphy for allegedly sexually abusing the girl\u2019s 20-year-old mother, who disclosed that the defendant also sexually abused her when she was 9 to 12 years old between 2005 and 2008.<\/p>\n
Another woman, 26, also told police that the defendant sexually abused her when she was 9 to 14 years old at a house in Capital Hill and in a jungle in Obyan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rota Police Officer Melvin Maratita Manglona and retired U.S. Army Reserve Michael Barry Murphy both…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[2626,1010,182,4710],"class_list":["post-235272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-attorney-general","tag-barbara-cepeda","tag-capital-hill","tag-cindy-nesbit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235272","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=235272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}