{"id":284482,"date":"2018-09-14T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T20:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=284482"},"modified":"2018-09-14T06:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T20:00:59","slug":"benedetto-allegations-are-false-surreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/benedetto-allegations-are-false-surreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedetto: Allegations are false, surreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_284483\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-284483\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Jim-Benedetto-mug-260x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"260\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-284483\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-284483\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Benedetto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Assistant U.S. attorney James J. Benedetto has asserted that the allegations of a notary public that his previous lawyers threatened or forced him to plead guilty are \u201cpatently false\u201d and even \u201csurreal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In opposing Liang Li\u2019s motion to withdraw his guilty plea, Benedetto said that Li\u2019s allegations are contradicted by his certification and his own statements under oath.<\/p>\n<p>Li, through counsel Janet H. King, also claims that he was pressured to plead guilty and that his then-attorneys threatened that he would be sexually assaulted during a lengthy prison sentence if he did not enter a guilty plea.<\/p>\n<p>Benedetto pointed out that defendant\u2019s certification states that \u201c\u2026no one has threatened me or forced me in any way to enter into this plea agreement. I am agreeing to plead guilty because I am guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Benedetto said Li also argues that he felt regret that he entered his plea. But he said post-conviction regret is not a fair and just reason for withdrawing a guilty plea.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAllowing [Li] to withdraw his plea on such transparently frivolous grounds would encourage others to re-litigate their convictions after the government has released its witnesses and ceased its other trial preparations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>That result, Benedetto added, would be the opposite of \u201cfair and just.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The indictment charged Li with lying in another person\u2019s U.S. passport application.<\/p>\n<p>Li\u2019s former counsel are Mark Scoggins and Rene Holmes. <\/p>\n<p>When Saipan Tribune left the courtroom on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona was still hearing the motion.<\/p>\n<p>The indictment charged Liang Li and Yanan Li with false statement in a passport application and false document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assistant U.S. attorney James J. Benedetto has asserted that the allegations of a notary public&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":284483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22647,22280,1936,17533],"class_list":["post-284482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-benedetto-allegations","tag-liang-li","tag-mark-scoggins","tag-rene-holmes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284482","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=284482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}