Young cop arrested for allegedly extorting money from motorist
A young police officer was arrested in Dandan on Friday night for allegedly pulling over a vehicle operated by a Chinese woman for a traffic violation and threatening to put her in jail if she would not have sex with him or pay him $300 cash last month.
Police Officer 1 Travis Anthony Dela Cruz Iglecias, 24, was served with an arrest warrant on charges of theft by extortion, bribery, and misconduct in public office.
Saipan Tribune learned that Iglecias resigned from the Department of Public Safety last Wednesday.
According to Attorney General Investigation Division investigator Vicente B. Babauta, during his interview last Oct. 5, Iglecias confessed to the allegations and admitted that what he did was wrong.
Babauta said the victim was still traumatized with the incident when she went to the Office of the Attorney Criminal Division last Sept. 26 and later filed a complaint with the AGID against Iglecias.
At a hearing yesterday, Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho maintained the $50,000 cash bail that Associate Judge Teresa Kim-Tenorio imposed in issuing the arrest warrant.
Camacho set the preliminary hearing for Oct. 25 at 1:30pm.
Assistant public defender Michael Sato was appointed as counsel for Iglecias. Assistant attorney general Chester Hinds appeared for the government.
AGID investigator Babauta stated in his report that the victim was driving her Toyota 4-Runner on her way to the Francisco C. Ada-Saipan International Airport when Iglecias pulled her over for a traffic violation by the Mobil Gas Station in Chalan Kiya last Sept. 25 at 11:30pm.
Babauta said Iglecias informed the woman of her violation, immediately handcuffed her, and secured her in the back seat of the police car.
Iglecias allegedly told the woman that she was going to jail and that she has to pay $700-$800 for the traffic citation.
Babauta said instead of transporting the woman to the Department of Corrections, Iglecias drove her to her house in Gualo Rai.
Investigator Babauta said according to Iglecias, prior to driving the woman to her house, she told the officer that her children were home and nobody was watching them.
Babauta said Iglecias confessed that he already planned to release the woman if she wanted to have sex with him or make extra cash from her by threatening her with charges for leaving her children alone at the house.
Babauta said prior to leaving the Mobil Gas Station with the woman, Iglecias called DPS Central dispatcher by phone to disregard all transmittal from him on the traffic violator stop.
Iglecias instructed the dispatcher to erase or white out all the transmittal on the transmittal log sheet and to move the case number to the next complaint.
Babauta said Iglecias did not use his DPS-issued hand-held radio to disregard the case because he didn’t want anybody to know that he was disregarding the woman’s arrest.
Iglecias allegedly did not call in the mileage on the police car prior to taking the woman to her house in Gualo Rai.
Babauta said Iglecias stated that he drove the woman to her house and upon entering the driveway, he turned off all the head lights of the police car to avoid getting attention from the neighbors.
At the house, Iglecias allegedly told the woman that if she had sex with him or gave him massage he will release her and she does not have to go to jail.
When she refused to have sex, Iglecias allegedly told her to pay him instead $300 and that he would make the $700-$800 traffic citation go away.
After the woman paid $300, Iglecias released her from custody at the residence. The officer then went straight to San Jose Mart where he bought cigarettes.
Babauta said a surveillance video from the Mobil Gas Station confirmed that a police vehicle indeed pulled over the victim’s 4-Runner at the station on Sept. 25 at 11:30pm.
Babauta said a gas attendant confirmed that the officer in the video was Iglecias, who is their regular customer.
Babauta said the victim identified Iglecias in the photo lineup showed to her.
What happen to serving and protecting the public?
Ask jumbo rafa-et and robert g., the NMI outstanding caretakers, who like donald trump can fix everything.
Not the groper in chief again.
obviously we can’t trust the people who swore to serve and protect…. so sad
I hope the Chinese woman is OK.
This article just ruined my mood and it happens to be my birthday today, very disheartening to read about.
happy birthday!
This is an old story why only now coming out?
So is he out in Bail, or just served a warrant and released on his own ?
Why no info from this reporter which usually is very good.
The incident happened less than a month ago, and trial dates are upcoming. This is current.
Talking about the notification in the paper.
From where I seat none of you are without sin, so none of you have the right to judge this cop. He made a terrible mistake. I’ve seen Governor Fitial get pardoned by my Uncle Iloy Inos for far worst than this cop did. Yet there’s so many of you that for the past nine years I had been here, you could do a better job to increase this policemen’s yearly wages to those of New York which are $ 44,777.00 plus the package which come with that worth $ 55,000.00 and that’s per cop. The only thing I’m gonna say is there plenty of you people that live here all your life and you are like sheep. You don’t stand for you rights, you expect others to fight for you. But you all will be the first to try to condemn this rookie to life in prison if you could. Not one of you from the AG’s Office, down to the Governor’s office, to the Congressmen, representative, you all live within the family where you all, I don’t care what agency you belong to, you all corrupt and you all have stolen in one way or another, and you haven’t done nothing to improve the minimum wage or help us find a job and cut food stamp and cut welfare and enforce these companies to hire us US and locals and everybody else.
Signed: Daniel Durkin
From where I seat none of you are without sin, so none of you have the right to judge this cop. He made a terrible mistake. I’ve seen Governor Fitial get pardoned by my Uncle Iloy Inos for far worst than this cop did. Yet there’s so many of you that for the past nine years I had been here, you could do a better job to increase this policemen’s yearly wages to those of New York which are $ 44,777.00 plus the package which come with that worth $ 55,000.00 and that’s per cop. The only thing I’m gonna say is there plenty of you people that live here all your life and you are like sheep. You don’t stand for you rights, you expect others to fight for you. But you all will be the first to try to condemn this rookie to life in prison if you could. Not one of you from the AG’s Office, down to the Governor’s office, to the Congressmen, representative, you all live within the family where you all, stolen I don’t care what agency you belong to, you all corrupt and you all have stolen in one way or another, and you haven’t done nothing to improve the minimum wage or help us find a job and cut food stamp and cut welfare and enforce these companies to hire us US and locals and everybody else.
Signed: Daniel Durkin
So it seems that you approve of a cop attempting top ‘rape’ a chinese lady, you app[rove of a cop stealing money from others, you also approve of cops paying for sex with minors, using and selling drugs, breaking and entering into homes, burglary, and many other crimes, all under color of authority because they have a badge and a gun. just glorified rental cops with no ethics and integrity among lacking much other desirable traits that are standard in other areas and nations.
So you also approve of all Govt officials and the elected involving in criminal acts because they can.or they are family and friends.
Your mindset and attitude is exactly what is wrong in the NMI and why the voters keep electing these past proven corrupt failures.
That is why the NMI is less than a third world country and nothing gets done or progresses in the NMI,, only regresses.
But I do agree with the rest of your comment except for tjhe cop wages as until they actually start to hire cops on their education and ability instead of by name (as is the elected and appointed) and send these guys to a real police academy then many are not even worth the time of day and do not do,anything to warrant any kind of money.
We can’t afford to continue having these kind of law enforcement officers to roam our streets. We all make mistakes in our lives, but there is a fine line that one may not cross and corrupt cop or bad cop don’t belong protecting our society. This guy should know better and the government should show our law enforcement agency that we don’t tolerate criminal behaviors.
Re-election frenzy cops are hired indiscriminately left and right doing away with a lot of required basic information. Makes no difference whether the person is half way qualified or not so long as there are many family members who may potentially VOTE in HIS direction. This is CORRUPTION….
Wait a minute pafao, we are both the benefactor of such system directly or indirectly.
Why doesn’t DPS do a better job in the screening process? The FBI and The CIA have personality tests they give EVERYONE and it identifies mooks like this long before they get on the job…SMH
Such positions were allocated via political connection. The screening process is not applicable in the CNMI and the system of nepotism is the plan of the day.
Yeah, we can only hope that one day the CNMI will learn to be a non-corrupt entity…
Folks need to vote out all the jerks who maintain the status quo and elect people who actually WANT to do the right thing…
Yes, we need to start from the Governor. We need new breeds within our legislative body and we challenge you to run with us in the future to make a different within. Diversity is the key to the betterment of our community and California is a prime example.
First what is the purpose of our local police? On Saipan to provide jobs, not police Work. Why do we have more police officers than the national average?
Jurisdiction Population Average Total Personnel Per 10k Population Average Officers Per 10k Population Number of Agencies
50,000-100,000 20.4 15.9 419
100,000-200,000 21.0 16.1 165
200,000-500,000 24.4 18.6 73
500,000+ 29.8 23.7 33
All Departments 21.4 16.6 690
As you see the national average is 20.4 police officers for every 10k citizens.
DPS has how many?
plus Ports authority
so the only reason to have so many officers is one of two reasons. One just to provide jobs, 2 the citizens are afraid to stand up for what is right so you need more officers to find who is committing the crime. Yet we still have unsolved murders and missing persons.