{"id":283815,"date":"2018-09-05T06:06:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=283815"},"modified":"2018-09-05T06:06:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T20:06:09","slug":"atalig-checked-if-he-qualifies-for-court-appointed-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/atalig-checked-if-he-qualifies-for-court-appointed-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"Atalig checked if he qualifies for court-appointed counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rota Mayor Efraim M. Atalig confers with Bruce Berline, his court-appointed counsel for preliminary matters, in front of the federal court building yesterday afternoon after a meeting with the U.S. Probation Office. The meeting was intended to determine if the mayor qualifies for a court-appointed counsel. (Ferdie de la Torre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rota Mayor Efraim M. Atalig went to the U.S. Probation Office yesterday afternoon with temporary lawyer, Bruce Berline, to determine if he qualifies for a court-appointed counsel.<\/p>\n

Atalig, 57, refused to comment upon his counsel\u2019s advice when he emerged from the Horiguchi Building in Garapan after the meeting.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Saipan Tribune, Berline, the court-appointed counsel for preliminary matters, said that yesterday\u2019s meeting was meant to determine if Atalig qualifies for a court-appointed counsel to represent him in the case.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather L. Kennedy appointed Berline yesterday to represent the 57-year-old mayor in the case for preliminary matters, including the initial appearance.<\/p>\n

In issuing the summons against Atalig, U.S. District Court for the NMI designated Judge David O. Carter directed the mayor to appear in court for an initial appearance today, Wednesday, at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n

Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Haejun Park served Atalig with the summons at the Rota Mayor\u2019s Office last Friday.<\/p>\n

Berline said that today\u2019s hearing is just for Atalig\u2019s initial appearance but most likely also for his arraignment. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I\u2019m appointed by the court to represent him so we might be moving straight to arraignment and the judge will make the determination,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

Berline said he does not expect the U.S. government to move to detain Atalig.<\/p>\n

The indictment charged Atalig with one count of wire fraud. <\/p>\n

A federal grand jury had indicted the mayor after he allegedly arranged a government-funded trip from Rota to Guam for himself and 12 others, including eight municipal employees, on a false claim that he was going to check for surplus equipment at the Naval Base in Guam. According to the allegation, he actually went there to participate in a political rally of the GOP last June 23 in Mangilao. <\/p>\n

Last Friday, the Office of the Attorney General filed an information charging Atalig and seven other <\/p>\n

Rota municipal officials each with theft and misconduct in public office arising from the same political rally. The defendants will be arraigned at the Superior Court on Sept. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rota Mayor Efraim M. Atalig went to the U.S. Probation Office yesterday afternoon with temporary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":283816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[1215,93,51,1923],"class_list":["post-283815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-bruce-berline","tag-district-court","tag-guam","tag-probation-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283815","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=283815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}