Judge WM. Fremming Nielsen said there is “clear and convincing evidence” that Mohammad Jahangir Miah is a “serious risk.”
Miah will endanger the safety of another person or the community, he added.
Nielsen noted that while Miah was on pretrial release for his criminal cases in Superior Court, the defendant was involved in a federal crime last May.
Miah was charged in the local trial court with theft by deception, immigration fraud, receiving stolen property.
Arrested by federal agents on Sunday afternoon last week, Miah was remanded by the judge to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after his detention hearing on Friday.
Miah’s wife, Tahira Dolores Miah, is a “de facto co-defendant, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk W. Schuler.
But she is cooperating with law enforcement, Schuler added.
Mohammad Jahangir Miah’s case was unsealed on Thursday.
Nielsen denied “at this time” the motion for bail by Miah’s court-appointed lawyer, Steven Pixley.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resident agent in charge for Saipan office Mark D. Yamanaka said a first cooperating source placed an unrecorded phone call on May 6, 2010 to a Chinese female “known to help foreign nationals obtain CNMI driver’s license.”
On May 14, 2010, series of recorded phone calls were made to the same Chinese female who told the first cooperating source that the “phone line to the CNMI Bureau of Motor Vehicles was busy.”
According to the prosecution, it was the first cooperating source who introduced the second cooperating source to the Chinese female and received $50 from the Chinese female after the second cooperating source obtained a CNMI driver’s license.
The second cooperating source paid $400 to the Chinese female for the driver’s license, the prosecution added.
Miah facilitated the release of the driver’s license, the prosecution said.
