The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office has opposed the request of an eight-month pregnant inmate for compassionate release, saying she appears to have continued using methamphetamine, or \u201cice,\u201d even while pregnant.<\/p>\n
In a response that assistant U.S. attorney Garth R. Backe submitted to the U.S. District Court for the NMI last Monday, April 25, he asked the court to deny Vickilyn Manglona Teregeyo\u2019s request for compassionate release and pointed out that the court had already considered Teregeyo\u2019s reasons as grounds for compassionate release when it sentenced her to three months imprisonment followed by three months home confinement at a revocation hearing last March 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince that revocation hearing, there have been no substantial changes to defendant\u2019s circumstances, besides the fact that defendant is closer to her pregnancy due date. Indeed, defendant is actually now in a worse position to request compassionate release because the laboratory analysis of defendant\u2019s urine sample taken at her revocation hearing on March 25, 2022, confirmed she had methamphetamine in her system and methamphetamine was found inside her jail cell on March 27, 2022,\u201d said Backe. \u201cSecond, this court should consider what is best for the health and safety of defendant\u2019s unborn child, and not what is most convenient for defendant.\u201d <\/p>\n
Backe cited Teregeyo\u2019s Guam case \u201cwhen her then-attorney filed a motion for temporary release due to her impending pregnancy. The magistrate judge granted the motion over the government\u2019s objection.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen [Teregeyo] gave birth, both she and the baby tested positive for methamphetamine. This clearly demonstrates that [Teregeyo]\u2014under almost the exact same circumstances\u2014has no regard for the safety of her unborn child, and that she cannot (and should not) be trusted to comply with any court-imposed conditions of release,\u201d said Backe.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Manglona scheduled to hear Teregeyo\u2019s petition today, April 27 at 8:30am. According to Backe, evidence will be presented that is related to this discovery during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Teregeyo had asked the court last April 18 for compassionate release and for her sentence to be modified to home confinement as she is due to give birth soon. She is represented by Richard Miller.<\/p>\n
Teregeyo is serving a three-month prison sentence in the CNMI Department of Corrections.
\nTeregeyo was convicted in Guam for the offense of drug user in possession of a firearm and ammunition, but was allowed by the federal court system to serve her probation\u2014later revoked\u2014in the CNMI. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office has opposed the request of an eight-month pregnant inmate for compassionate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":365347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367100","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\/367100","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}