“I wasn’t involved in the plea at all,” Sutton told the Variety in a phone interview. “For her to say that is ridiculous.”
U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands records showed Sutton took over from Aguon’s first court-appointed attorney, Stephanie Flores, on Sept. 24. 2007.
Aguon’s plea was entered on Sept. 21, 2007.
In a letter to the federal court, Aguon claims that Flores and Sutton did not properly explain to her that she would eventually be deported to her home country, the Philippines, for pleading guilty.
Sutton said a removal hearing was held in Washington, D.C. where Aguon spent most of her prison time.
The judge asked Aguon if she wanted to be deported to Saipan or the Philippines.
She chose Saipan because her family was here.
Apparently, U.S. immigration authorities sent her back to Saipan because at that time the CNMI’s immigration system wasn’t federalized yet and she was an immediate relative, or IR, of an American citizen.
But after the CNMI’s immigration system was federalized on Nov. 28, 2009, her deportation case was moved to the federal immigration court which already has an office on Saipan.
The Jan. 24 hearing on her case in federal immigration court was postponed.
Another attorney advised her to file an appeal regarding her immigration status so she could stay here and be with her four children who were born and raised on Saipan.
Aguon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S. by submitting false, fictitious and fraudulent tax credit claims to the Internal Revenue Service.
At least 275 false claims were filed using fake addresses in the U.S. They claimed refunds through the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit Program, which does not apply to the Northern Marianas.
