Talks continue whether or not to dismiss with prejudice the charges against a man who allegedly sexually abused a minor. <\/p>\n
During a status conference for Joseph Seman Epina last week, a resolution was not reached and a decision has yet to be made whether the charges against him are to be dismissed or not. <\/p>\n
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph Camacho set another status conference for April 24 to continue the discussion. <\/p>\n
According to Saipan Tribune archives, the 45-year-old Epina was charged with sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree and disturbing the peace. He allegedly sexually abused a 12-year-old girl on March 12, 2016.<\/p>\n
The victim has since left the island. <\/p>\n
Epina\u2019s lawyer, assistant public defender Heather M. Zona, said that Epina has been waiting for nearly three years in jail for his case to be resolved. As a result, Epina and his family have suffered greatly, she said.<\/p>\n
When Super Typhoon Yutu hit Saipan last October, Epina was in jail and could not help his family prepare for the typhoon or work on the house., Zona said.<\/p>\n
Zona asserted that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to a speedy trial under both the CNMI and the U.S. constitutions.<\/p>\n
She said dismissal is appropriate because the government is responsible for this substantial and unwarranted delay.<\/p>\n
However, Office of the Attorney General\u2019s Chester Hinds, who recently took over the case, argued last Wednesday that the delay was due to the numerous motions filed by the defense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talks continue whether or not to dismiss with prejudice the charges against a man who…<\/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-298174","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\/298174","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=298174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}