{"id":409694,"date":"2024-05-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=409694"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Shayne-Villanueva-asks-court-for-travel-authorization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Shayne-Villanueva-asks-court-for-travel-authorization\/","title":{"rendered":"Shayne Villanueva asks court for travel authorization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shayne Blanco Villanueva, who is currently facing contempt charges for refusing to answer questions during a legislative investigation on the previous administration\u2019s Building Optimism, Opportunity, and Stability Together grant program, has asked the court for a bail modification allowing him to travel off-island for business.<\/p>\n<p>Villanueva appeared before Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja for a bail modification hearing last Tuesday and sought for his passport to be returned to him and to allow him to travel off-island for business.<\/p>\n<p>Villanueva tearfully shared that his business in the CNMI is struggling because his reputation has been ruined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot having my passport is like handcuffing me. My reputation, even after all the volunteering that I\u2019ve done, is pretty much ruined at this point. I\u2019m doing my best to try to maintain my businesses to pay my bills. It\u2019s difficult at this time, for me. I promise to come back, I\u2019m not leaving for vacation. This is something that I need, I don\u2019t have a daytime job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Villanueva shared that he has two business trips in the next few weeks and promises to provide the court with his travel itinerary and ticket.<\/p>\n<p>After hearing from both parties, Naraja granted Villanueva\u2019s request and authorized the release of his passport.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with assistant attorney general James Kingman, he said the application for bail modification was reasonable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t really oppose it. The point of bail conditions is to guarantee a compliance with the court\u2019s orders and with appearance with court. Mr. Villanueva hasn\u2019t given any indication that he isn\u2019t going to comply with the court\u2019s conditions. I think it\u2019s a fair accommodation by the court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The court also set Villanueva\u2019s case for trial in October.<\/p>\n<p>Kingman shared that it hasn\u2019t been determined if it will be a jury or bench trial but because the charge is a misdemeanour it\u2019s most likely going to be a bench trial.<\/p>\n<p> <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\/0e485857209d0a625ff49318231093b9.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Shayne Villanueva leaves the courtroom of Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja after a bail modification hearing last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure> <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\/533eb8e8a3df298fb2d5b182b4833747.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Assistant Attorney General James Kingman Shayne Villanueva leaves the courtroom of Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja after the bail modification hearing of Shayne Villanueva last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shayne Blanco Villanueva, who is currently facing contempt charges for refusing to answer questions during&#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-409694","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\/409694","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=409694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}