{"id":426147,"date":"2024-11-05T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=426147"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Jury-finds-2-of-3-accused-of-helping-illegally-transport-others-to-Guam-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Jury-finds-2-of-3-accused-of-helping-illegally-transport-others-to-Guam-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds 2 of 3 accused of helping illegally transport others to Guam, guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of U.S. District Court for the NMI jurors found two of three Chinese nationals accused of helping illegally transport others to Guam by boat guilty following a verdict reading last Friday.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, federal court jurors deemed Yang Hongjiang and Weng Meifang guilty of transporting illegal aliens by boat to Guam but found co-defendant Huang Xiulan not guilty.<\/p>\n

Originally, the three defendants were each charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting transportation of illegal aliens.<\/p>\n

Each defendant was also charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.<\/p>\n

Following the reading of the verdict, District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona scheduled Yang and Weng\u2019s sentencing for March 14, 2025, at 9am.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Manglona discharged Huang from the proceedings and ordered that her travel documents be returned to her.<\/p>\n

Yang and Weng were allowed to remain released on their own recognizance pending sentencing as long as they abide by the previous imposed terms and conditions of their release.<\/p>\n

Assistant U.S. attorneys Eric O\u2019Malley and Garth Backe appeared for the federal government while defense attorneys Richard Miller, Cong Nie, and Mark Hanson represented Yang, Weng, and Huang, respectively.<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, in or about late June or early July 2023, Yang, Weng, and Huang and others created, joined, and abetted a scheme to transport eight aliens (including themselves) from the District of the Northern Mariana Islands to the Territory of Guam.<\/p>\n

The indictment alleges that the scheme was carried out with the intent that the aliens would reside in Guam, knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that seven of the aliens were illegally present in the United States, including in the District of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the eighth alien had no authority to enter or reside in Guam or any part of the United States other than the District of the Northern Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The U.S. District Court for the NMI in Gualo Rai.<\/p>\n

-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES
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A group of U.S. District Court for the NMI jurors found two of three Chinese…<\/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-426147","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\/426147","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=426147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}