{"id":346750,"date":"2021-06-25T06:05:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T20:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=346750"},"modified":"2021-06-25T06:05:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T20:05:31","slug":"woman-found-guilty-of-child-abuse-in-death-of-3-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/woman-found-guilty-of-child-abuse-in-death-of-3-year-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman found guilty of child abuse in death of 3-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Stacey Laniyo is escorted in handcuffs to the Department of Corrections after a jury found her guilty of child abuse over the death of a 3-year-old boy. (KIMBERLY B. ESMORES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A six-person Superior Court jury deliberated just a few hours yesterday and returned with a unanimous guilty verdict against a woman who\u2019s been charged with child abuse over the death of a 3-year-old boy. Her lawyer immediately said they intend to file a motion for a new trial.<\/p>\n

Following the jury verdict that found Stacey Lani Laniyo guilty of one count of child abuse, her lawyer, Mark Scoggins, asked the court not to remand her because they plan to file a motion for a new trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was pervasive, serious, very prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct in this case and we intend to ask for a new trial. The prosecution was out of control and it was appalling, really, her behavior. This matter does involve serious questions about the fairness of the trial and there is no need to remand her to custody at this time,\u201d Scoggins told the court.<\/p>\n

Scoggins added that he is hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant a stay, or temporarily suspend, the verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no need to remand her at this time. If she gets sentenced to a short sentence or long sentence in September, she can serve that or a portion of it until the Supreme Court hopefully will stay that but there\u2019s no need to take her into custody. The court should know that there is a very serious chance that Ms. Laniyo\u2019s rights were prejudiced by the prosecutor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite Scoggins\u2019 arguments, Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph Camacho remanded Laniyo to the Department of Correction because the jury has decided and now that she is no longer presumed innocent, he said his concern is for the children who still live in her home.<\/p>\n

He ordered Laniyo to return to court on Sept. 8 to be sentenced. The maximum sentence for child abuse, Camacho said, is five years.<\/p>\n

The lead prosecutor in this case, Coleen St. Clair, later accused the defense of being shameless and resorting to attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have the facts on your side, you attack. The allegations he made started even before the trial and I find it shameless because he actually got caught lying to the jury when he was waving his document before the witness, saying, \u2018You never said this,\u2019 knowing that the jury would never see that document and, in fact, in that document, she had said all those things he claimed she didn\u2019t say. It\u2019s shameless,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In terms of the remand, St. Clair said she requested Laniyo be remanded because it\u2019s standard to remand a defendant after a jury trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A six-person Superior Court jury deliberated just a few hours yesterday and returned with a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":346751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346750","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=346750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}