The Office of the Attorney General has filed a fourth amended information in Superior Court against Rota Mayor
\nEfraim Atalig.<\/p>\n
OAG has amended count one in its suit against Atalig to allege a different theory of official misconduct based on improper approval of per diem for days not spent on official business.<\/p>\n
Misconduct in public office is punishable by imprisonment for a period of not more than one year or a fine of not more than $1,000.<\/p>\n
According to the fourth amended information, Atalig committed misconduct in public office from about June 1, 2018, to Nov, 27, 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Atalig], being a public official and acting under the color of his public office, committed an illegal act by violating when defendant willfully and knowingly improperly approved travel and\/or travel costs for nongovernmental employees or governmental employees who were not traveling for government purposes\u201d the amendment stated. <\/p>\n
Originally, the OAG charged Atalig and seven of his current and former resident directors with misconduct in public office in connection with their attendance at a Republican Party campaign rally in Guam.<\/p>\n
Atalig is the only remaining defendant in the Superior Court case.<\/p>\n
Atalig\u2019s co-defendants have already disposed the cases against them through a plea agreement or by participating in an adult diversion program.<\/p>\n
Back in August, in his case with the U.S. District Court for the NMI, jurors unanimously found Atalig and his common-law wife, Evelyn, innocent on all counts.<\/p>\n
The Ataligs were acquitted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and two counts of false statement.<\/p>\n
The Ataligs were being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and false statement.<\/p>\n
The prosecution alleged that the Ataligs went to a lot of CNMI-funded trips in 2018 with the primary, if not only, purpose being personal and not official.<\/p>\n
The prosecution cited eight trips taken by the Ataligs at different times in 2018 to Guam, Palau, the U.S. mainland, South Korea, and Saipan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Office of the Attorney General has filed a fourth amended information in Superior Court…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":338012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-337993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-oag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337993","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=337993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}