One of Sen Sun\u2019s pregnant clients died during childbirth this year, according to assistant U.S. attorney James Benedetto yesterday.<\/p>\n
In pushing for Sun\u2019s continued detention pending trial, Benedetto said it is his understanding that one of Sun\u2019s pregnant clients died, leading to a verbal confrontation between the woman\u2019s husband and Sun.<\/p>\n
Benedetto did not provide other details about the death and the alleged confrontation.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather Kennedy later allowed Sun to post an $8,500 bond and his release to a third-party custodian.<\/p>\n
Sun, an alleged overstaying Chinese tourist, was indicted in federal court for allegedly operating an unlicensed business that offered trip packages to the CNMI for pregnant Chinese women seeking to give birth here. <\/p>\n
The indictment charged Sun with harboring illegal aliens, unlawfully employing aliens, and money laundering.<\/p>\n
At a detention hearing yesterday, Benedetto also disclosed that the Department of Public Safety recently investigated Sun for robbery and assault and battery, but that he does not have details about the case.<\/p>\n
He said that Sun has been lying about the sources of his income and lied to federal enforcement that he lost his passport a long time ago, despite not reporting the alleged loss to authorities.<\/p>\n
Benedetto noted that the FBI retrieved a photo of Sun\u2019s passport from casino records.<\/p>\n
He said the casino took a photo of Sun\u2019s passport as it showed that the defendant had payment redemption in the amount of $20,000, $30,000, and $100,000 between Sept. 22, 2017 and Oct. 8, 2017.<\/p>\n
These records, he said, belied Sun\u2019s claim that he lost his passport.<\/p>\n
Benedetto said the evidence shows that Sun is not forthcoming to law enforcement and his gambling history is significant.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Petersburg, the court-appointed counsel for Sun, said that Sun has a 3-year-old son born here on Saipan.<\/p>\n
Petersburg said that Sun has no prior criminal record and was indeed arrested for robbery, but there\u2019s no information or report about it.<\/p>\n
Petersburg said the evidence shows that Sun was aware of the investigation in the federal case but he did not flee the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Petersburg said any risk of flight can be mitigated by placing his client on location monitoring and setting other conditions.<\/p>\n
Kennedy later released Sun to a third-party custodian, Yong Park. He will be subjected to a location monitoring program and restriction to Park\u2019s house at all times except for court hearings, medical appointments, or with the court\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n
Petersburg will continue as Sun\u2019s counsel for now, but Sun may be assessed attorney\u2019s fees at the end of the lawyer\u2019s representation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Sen Sun\u2019s pregnant clients died during childbirth this year, according to assistant U.S….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[256,26,12631,18986],"class_list":["post-264627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-casino","tag-cnmi","tag-james-benedetto","tag-sen-sun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264627","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=264627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}