Former senator Ricardo S. Atalig wants to withdraw his appeal of the federal court\u2019s order that denied re-sentening him over his conviction on wire fraud charges over a \u201cghost employee scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atalig\u2019s attorney, Steven Pixley, told the Saipan Tribune that he would withdraw the appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Pixley said the decision came about after he reviewed applicable law and discussed the matter with his client.<\/p>\n
Last Nov. 7, Pixley notified the appellate court that he would appeal the federal trial court\u2019s Oct. 27, 2005 order that denied Atalig a re-sentencing. Earlier, on Oct. 19, 2005, the appellate court tossed back the case to the trial court for Atalig\u2019s re-sentencing, without mentioning the rationale behind the decision.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Alex R. Munson denied Atalig\u2019s re-sentencing, upholding his August 2003 ruling that meted out five years and three months imprisonment and a $40,000-fine against the former lawmaker.<\/p>\n
Munson branded Atalig as arrogant, saying that the former lawmaker refuses to accept personal responsibility for the crimes he was convicted of. The trial judge maintained the propriety of the 2003 sentence, explaining that it was proportionate to the seriousness of Atalig\u2019s offenses and serves as deterrent to the commission of similar crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court believes that removing defendant from society adequately protects the public from further crimes of this defendant,\u201d Munson said. \u201cHad the court known at the time that it sentenced this elected official defendant that the sentencing guidelines were advisory, it might very well have imposed a materially different, and considerably harsher sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munson said he opted to deny Atalig a re-sentencing in the interest of fairness after imposing the maximum sentence based on the sentencing guidelines in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis defendant violated laws, profoundly betrayed the public trust reposed in him by the voters, and helped pervert the moral sensibilities of the young people of the Commonwealth by initiating them into a political culture of criminal behavior, an utter disregard for the moral obligations and ethical duties imposed upon, and rightfully expected from, the Commonwealth\u2019s elected officials,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Atalig\u2019s conviction and sentence stemmed from his hiring of another senator\u2019s daughter in exchange for that lawmaker\u2019s hiring of his wife. The employees received government payroll even though they did not actually render work.<\/p>\n
Following the imposition of the sentence in 2003, Atalig appealed his conviction and sentence before the Court of Appeals, with the assistance of his former attorney, Stephen C. Woodruff.<\/p>\n
Pixley later replaced Woodruff as Atalig\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former senator Ricardo S. Atalig wants to withdraw his appeal of the federal court\u2019s order that denied re-sentening him over his conviction on wire fraud charges over a \u201cghost employee scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96644","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\/96644","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=96644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}