The Office of the Attorney General has agreed to grant \u201cuse immunity\u201d to four of seven co-defendants of Rota Mayor Efraim M. Atalig in the Superior Court case. <\/p>\n
As this developed, assistant U.S. attorney Eric O\u2019Malley, counsel for the U.S. government, informed the U.S. District Court for the NMI yesterday that he is working on extending \u201cuse immunity\u201d to Atalig\u2019s seven co-defendants in Superior Court who are not indicted in federal court.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley said it is unclear, however, whether this requires approval from the U.S. Department of Justice\u2019s Office of Enforcement Operations and, if so, whether it will be approved.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley also stated that his research suggests that immunity granted by the CNMI prosecution would bind the U.S. government. <\/p>\n
Chief prosecutor John Bradley told Saipan Tribune yesterday that \u201cuse immunity\u201d refers to protection given the witness from having their testimony used against them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWitness can still be prosecuted, just with evidence other than their testimony. Witness also can still be prosecuted for perjury if a witness lies during testimony,\u201d Bradley said.<\/p>\n
Transactional immunity, on the other hand, protects the witness from being prosecuted for a particular crime.<\/p>\n
The chief prosecutor said Atalig\u2019s four witnesses were offered \u201cuse immunity\u201d and not transactional immunity.<\/p>\n
Bradley said that, once the Superior Court approves the \u201cuse immunity\u201d offer, witnesses can\u2019t refuse to testify by invoking their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.<\/p>\n
The four co-defendants are Dean Manglona, Eusebio Manglona, Josepha Manglona, and Dennis Mendiola. They have not resolved their cases.<\/p>\n
Last Friday, assistant attorney general Erin Toolan, counsel for the CNMI government, informed the Superior Court that they agree to grant \u201cuse immunity\u201d to the four co-defendants \u201cin the interest of justice and to avoid further delay of both the federal and CNMI trials.<\/p>\n
The bench trial in the Superior Court case is currently set for March 30, while the jury trial in the U.S. District Court case is set for March 10.<\/p>\n
In the Superior Court case, three other co-defendants\u2014Vanessa Charfauros, Magdalena Mesngon, and Dexter Apatang\u2014have already disposed of their cases by plea agreement.<\/p>\n
Toolan said that, as a term of their agreements, the three agreed to cooperate with the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the U.S. Attorney and testify in both local and federal trials.<\/p>\n
Toolan said that, per the agreements, the three defendants were granted immunity from the CNMI government related to this incident.<\/p>\n
Toolan was in the District Court yesterday to observe the hearing on Mayor Atalig\u2019s motion to continue the trial of his case until the related criminal case pending before the Superior Court is resolved as to his seven co-defendants.<\/p>\n
David G. Banes, counsel for Mayor Atalig, informed the court that, with O\u2019Malley stating his intent to grant \u201cuse immunity\u201d before the CNMI case is resolved, it may render their motion for continuance unnecessary.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona will hold a pre-trial hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n
In the federal court case, the charges against Efraim and Evelyn Atalig involve at least eight trips taken by the couple at different times in 2018 to Guam, Palau, the U.S. mainland, South Korea, and Saipan.<\/p>\n
The Ataligs are being charged jointly with wire fraud, theft concerning programs involving federal funds, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and federal funds theft.<\/p>\n
In the Superior Court case, the OAG charged Mayor Atalig and the seven co-defendants with misconduct in public office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Office of the Attorney General has agreed to grant \u201cuse immunity\u201d to four of…<\/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":[257,86],"class_list":["post-318411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-nmi","tag-oag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318411","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=318411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}