{"id":411035,"date":"2024-07-24T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=411035"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Villanueva-bench-trial-to-begin-Nov-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Villanueva-bench-trial-to-begin-Nov-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Villanueva bench trial to begin Nov. 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Superior Court granted the prosecution\u2019s request to alter the trial date of Shayne Blanco Villanueva during a motion hearing yesterday with Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja resetting the trial\u2019s start to Nov. 6, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Villanueva\u2019s trial is in regards to the contempt charge filed against him by the Office of the Attorney General for refusing to answer questions during legislative investigation on the previous administration\u2019s Building Optimism, Opportunity, and Stability Together grant program.<\/p>\n<p>In the hearing yesterday, the prosecuting party for the CNMI, led by Office of the Attorney General assistant attorney general James Kingman, and Villanueva\u2019s defense attorney, Keith Chambers, appeared before Naraja and set dates for the trial and other logistics leading up to the trial.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately the trial date was set for Nov. 6, 2024. During the court session yesterday, Kingman said he believes the trial can be completed within one day, while Chambers disagreed saying the trial could become a three-day affair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe trial is not going to be three days straight,\u201d said Naraja \u201cIf it\u2019s going to work around everyone\u2019s schedule.\u201d He implied that the hearing will start on Nov. 6 and after the hearing and going through the day\u2019s testimony, it will be decided if or when the continuing day may be.<\/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\/1ee8b5a55dce0bd0ff47ceba16668f82.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>Shayne Blanco Villanueva flashes the V sign as he exits his July 8 hearing at the Superior Court in Susupe in this file photo.<\/p>\n<p>-CHRYSTAL MARINO<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Superior Court granted the prosecution\u2019s request to alter the trial date of Shayne Blanco&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411035","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\/411035","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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}