The defense counsel in the case involving a man who pleaded guilty to license fraud has proposed a probation sentence for his client.<\/p>\n
According to Steven Pixley, defense lawyer for Margarito Cortez Villafuerte, a probation sentence is appropriate because, pursuant to the plea agreement that his client signed, the U.S. government had agreed to recommend that the court impose a sentence no longer than seven days in prison. <\/p>\n
\u201cVillafuerte has accepted full responsibility for his actions and there exist no aggravating circumstances weighing in favor of incarceration. Villafuerte wants to return to his family in the Philippines as soon as this case is resolved,\u201d Pixley stated. <\/p>\n
In addition, based on the findings of the U.S. Probation Office, a total offense level of 4 and a criminal history category of 1\u2014 which applies in Villafuerte\u2019s case\u2014sets the guideline imprisonment range from zero to six months. <\/p>\n
Pixley also argues that the sentencing court should avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct, siting the case of Mingjin Jin as an example. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis court in recent years has sentenced similarly-situated defendants to probation. For example, on May 28, 2021, this court sentenced Mingjin Jin to serve a term of one-year probation. A sentence of probation would comport with this sentencing requirement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, Villafuerte, 64 and a Filipino citizen who had no immigration status, paid someone $150 so he could obtain a CNMI driver\u2019s license. Four years later, on June 23, 2021, Villafuerte was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully produce an identification document. He entered into a plea agreement on Aug. 31, 2021 where declared that he fully accepted responsibility for his actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it was illegal and that I was breaking the law\u2026but I needed a driver\u2019s license so I could drive my sister who had cancer. I understand that the way I obtained my driver\u2019s license in 2017 and 2014 was a serious violation of U.S. laws. I am sorry for breaking the law and I\u2019m willing to take responsibility for that,\u201d he stated. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The defense counsel in the case involving a man who pleaded guilty to license fraud…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":335136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352389","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=352389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}