Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja has slapped a six-month prison term against a man for possession of methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d on Tinian. <\/p>\n
In a written order issued yesterday, Naraja gave defendant Michael Borja Evangelista credit of 23 days of time served.<\/p>\n
Naraja ordered the 29-year-old Evangelista to surrender to the Tinian Department of Public Safety on Oct. 17, 2016 at 9am.<\/p>\n
Naraja directed Tinian DPS to then bring Evangelista to the Department of Corrections on Saipan to start serving the prison term.<\/p>\n
The defendant\u2019s release date is March 25, 2017 at 9am.<\/p>\n
The judge ordered Evangelista to pay a $2,000 fine and $100 in court assessment fee.<\/p>\n
A review hearing will be held on July 14, 2017 at the Tinian Superior Court.<\/p>\n
Evangelista signed a plea deal with the government. He pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a controlled substance during a hearing at the Tinian Superior Court last Sept. 9.<\/p>\n
According to the factual basis of the plea agreement, Evangelista unlawfully possessed a gram or less of methamphetamine on Tinian last Jan. 6.<\/p>\n
Assistant public defender Michael Sato is counsel for Evangelista. Assistant attorney general Chester Hinds appeared for the government.<\/p>\n
Evangelista was among seven persons arrested during anti-drug operation led by Tinian DPS director John Santos last February.<\/p>\n
Police said during a controlled buy operation last Jan. 6, their informant managed to purchase $50 worth of \u201cice\u201d from Evangelista, Kyle San Nicolas Cepeda, and Frank Mendiola in front of Poker Club.<\/p>\n
Cepeda recently pleaded guilty to illegal possession of controlled substance and was sentenced to six months imprisonment, with credit of six months of time served. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja has slapped a six-month prison term against a…<\/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":[13478,13404,13479,1428],"class_list":["post-236877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-frank-mendiola","tag-michael-borja-evangelista","tag-poker-club","tag-tinian-superior-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236877","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=236877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}