The federal court has imposed an eight-day time-served sentence on a cab driver who turned out to be an overstaying tourist and was found with a fake CNMI driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n
Cong Chen, a Chinese national, shall also serve six months of supervised release.<\/p>\n
At a change of plea hearing Monday afternoon, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona barred the 28-year-old Chen from possessing a controlled substance and to refrain from using illegal drugs.<\/p>\n
Manglona suspended the drug testing condition based on her determination that Chen poses a low risk of future substance abuse.<\/p>\n
As a further condition of his supervised release, Chen must pay a $100 in special assessment fee.<\/p>\n
After the hearing, the defendant was remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshal for his release.<\/p>\n
At the hearing, assistant U.S. attorney Eric S. O\u2019Malley and court-appointed defense counsel Benjamin Petersburg, both recommended that Chen be sentenced to time served.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley also informed the court that Chen will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
Chen pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting fraud as part of a plea deal.<\/p>\n
Chen, through an interpreter, said he came to Saipan as a tourist in April 2017 and extended his stay. He admitted that he paid $1,200 to obtain a CNMI driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n
Assistant U.S. attorney O\u2019Malley said that a Federal Protective Service inspector saw Chen illegally park in Garapan last Nov. 28. When the FPS inspector confronted Chen, he presented what appeared to be a fake CNMI driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The federal court has imposed an eight-day time-served sentence on a cab driver who turned…<\/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":[26,23384,9091,22839],"class_list":["post-289829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-cong-chen","tag-customs-enforcement","tag-fps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289829","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=289829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}