Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja acquitted yesterday 50-year-old Andres B. Roberto of charges that he sexually assaulted a minor on Saipan.<\/p>\n
Naraja found Roberto not guilty of sexual abuse of a minor in the third degree, assault and battery, and disturbing the peace. He will issue a written order.<\/p>\n
The bench trial began last Aug. 22. The trial was continued several times due to some legal issues, among other reasons. The trial resumed in March 2017. <\/p>\n
After hearing the parties\u2019 closing arguments two weeks ago, the judge said he would announce his verdict yesterday.<\/p>\n
Defense counsel Joaquin Torres later said he is happy with the judge\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the first, I\u2019m sure there are more stories that are made up for various reasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Torres said they are just happy that Naraja believed Roberto\u2019s view and his testimony.<\/p>\n
Torres said the burden of proof always rests with the government.<\/p>\n
He said his client testified that he was not at the scene. \u201cThere\u2019s no way he was there,\u201d the defense lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Torres called to the stand four witnesses, including Roberto. Assistant attorney general Jonathan Glass Jr., counsel for the government, called six witnesses.<\/p>\n
Police said Roberto allegedly handed $60 for a fundraiser to the 14-year-old girl, then hugged her, kissed her on the mouth, squeezed her breast, and rubbed her butt in the back of a house in the evening of April 19, 2016.<\/p>\n
The girl said she pushed Roberto away, threw the money at him, and ran into the house. <\/p>\n
Roberto is the brother of former CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife official Raymond B. Roberto, who was acquitted in 2014 by a federal jury of charges that he enticed three minors to engage in prostitution and tampered with a witness while he was in jail. Torres and David Lujan served as counsel for Raymond Roberto in that case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja acquitted yesterday 50-year-old Andres B. Roberto of charges…<\/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":[11206,15639,12744,1105],"class_list":["post-252107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-andres-roberto","tag-david-lujan","tag-jonathan-glass-jr","tag-raymond-roberto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252107","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=252107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}