The prosecution and the defense completed Friday their closing arguments in the ongoing retrial in federal court of former Department of Corrections officer Mariano Q. Falig Jr. who is accused of distributing methamphetamine or \u201cice.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona adjourned the trial and directed the 14 jurors to return today, Monday, at 2pm for jury instructions and deliberations.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney Ross Naughton is prosecuting the case. Bruce Berline is Falig\u2019s counsel.<\/p>\n
An indictment charged Falig and his second cousin, Vicente Aldan Sablan, also known as Ben Seven, with conspiracy to distribute \u201cice\u201d and distribution of \u201cice.\u201d In addition, Falig was charged with using, carrying, or possession of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence or drug trafficking crime. The U.S. government later dismissed this count.<\/p>\n
Sablan signed a plea deal with the U.S. government. He testified on Thursday for the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
According to DEA Task Force officer Diwain A. Stephen in his report, their confidential source gave Sablan $800 in ATF funds (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) for a controlled purchase of \u201cice\u201d from Falig.<\/p>\n
After Vicente Sablan\u2019s testimony, the prosecution then called to the witness stand his cousin, Robin Norita Sablan, who allegedly brought them to the location of \u201cice\u201d supplier in Lower Navy Hill. The last government\u2019s witness for the day was chemist Todd H. Davis.<\/p>\n
In March 2013, Manglona declared a mistrial in the case after Falig\u2019s then counsel, Ramon K. Quichocho, disclosed shortly after jury selection that he represents the prosecution\u2019s key witness in a family court proceeding.<\/p>\n
The retrial of Falig began last Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The prosecution and the defense completed Friday their closing arguments in the ongoing retrial in…<\/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":[744,93,257],"class_list":["post-28895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chief-judge-ramona","tag-district-court","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28895","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=28895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}