{"id":404030,"date":"2024-01-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=404030"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Torres-arraignment-set-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Torres-arraignment-set-next-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Torres&#8217; arraignment set next week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former governor Ralph DLG Torres is set to be arraigned on Monday in the contempt case filed against him by assistant attorney general James Kingman.<\/p>\n<p>Pursuant to a penal summons Torres was served in conjunction with the contempt case refiled against him by Kingman, Torres must appear before Superior Court judge <em>pro tem<\/em> Arthur Barcinas to enter a plea in relation to the charges against him.<\/p>\n<p>Kingman has also asked the court to schedule a status conference on the same day in the ongoing criminal case against the former governor. This is because there is still no trial date in the criminal case against Torres where he is accused of misconduct in public office relating to first-class travel and theft.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe court has twice before requested that the parties provide their preferences for the trial to be set. For both parties, operating without a scheduling order is detrimental to the effective administration of justice,\u201d Kingman said.<\/p>\n<p>The original case against Torres was filed by the Office of the Attorney General on April 8, 2022. Torres was charged with 12 counts of misconduct in public office and one count of theft relating to the issuance of airline tickets for business class, first class, or other premium class travel for himself and\/or Diann T. Torres, his wife. The case also alleged one count of contempt for failure to appear in compliance with a legislative subpoena.<\/p>\n<p>The former governor has denied the charges.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 23, 2022, judge <em>pro tem<\/em> Alberto Tolentino dismissed without prejudice the contempt charge against Torres. On Oct. 26, 2023, Kingman refiled a separate charge of contempt and misconduct in public office against Torres.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 19, 2023, Barcinas directed the prosecution to refile the penal summons against the former governor due to improper service.<\/p>\n<p>Kingman refiled the penal summons the next day, Dec. 20, 2023.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/5fa3587ffb8f744d15aa68522f6a66dc.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Former governor Ralph DLG Torres as he leaves a Superior Court courtroom following one of his hearing in his ongoing criminal case.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former governor Ralph DLG Torres is set to be arraigned on Monday in the contempt&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404030","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}