A man was arrested on two counts of trafficking of a controlled substance and waived his right to a preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n
Mark Anthony S. Benavente, 38, through his lawyer, Chief Public Defender Doug Hartig, waived Tuesday his right to a preliminary hearing on two charges of trafficking the controlled substance methamphetamine or \u2018ice\u2019. <\/p>\n
A preliminary hearing is a proceeding after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial.<\/p>\n
Benavente was arrested following two sting operations by the Drug Enforcement Task Force. <\/p>\n
According to the declaration of probable cause, the charges against Benavente are backed by recorded phone conversations and identification by a cooperating source. <\/p>\n
The declaration of probable cause states that on Jan. 11, 2018, and Jan. 18, 2018, Benavente was caught, through the task force\u2019s cooperating source, distributing \u201cice\u201d In Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 11, 2018, at about 11:35am, task force officers monitored a phone conversation between the cooperating source and Benavente. <\/p>\n
In that conversation, Benavente and the cooperating source agreed to meet at the Shany Laundry and Poker in Chalan Kanoa to make the transaction. <\/p>\n
Although Benavente was hesitant on the phone to sell \u201cice\u201d to the cooperating source, Benavente still went through with the transaction. <\/p>\n
Task force officers later showed the cooperating source a picture of Benavente and the source confirmed that the man in the picture was the man he met at the Shany Laundry and Poker. <\/p>\n
Task force officers tested the crystalline substance procured from the cooperating source for methamphetamine and the results turned up positive. <\/p>\n
The second \u201cbuy-walk\u201d operation was on Jan. 18, 2018, at the Shany Laundry and Poker at around 2:19pm. <\/p>\n
In May 2015, Benavente was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to burglarizing and stealing money and an iPad from the Pena House Boutique in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man was arrested on two counts of trafficking of a controlled substance and waived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295860","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}