By Bryan Manabat
[email protected]
Variety News Staff
A PART-TIME employee at Triple Star Recycling Center in Lower Base is accused of beating the business owner with an expandable baton during an argument over two weeks’ unpaid salary.
Lu Wang, 43, was charged with aggravated assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon, and disturbing the peace. Variety has learned that prosecutors also intend to file an attempted murder charge.
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho on Monday set Wang’s bail at $50,000 cash. Wang was represented by Public Defender Robert McNeill, while Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds appeared for the government. Wang was remanded to the Department of Corrections and ordered to return for a preliminary hearing on April 29 and arraignment on May 11.
According to the complaint, another employee told investigators that Wang worked part time as a helper at Triple Star Recycling and had gone to the office to request payment for two weeks’ work he performed on Tinian. The witness said Wang and the owner spoke in Chinese, which he did not understand, but he saw the owner slap the table. Wang then stood up, pulled a silver metal pipe — later identified as an expandable baton — from his bag, and began striking the owner repeatedly on the head. When the owner fell to the ground, Wang allegedly continued kicking and striking him.
Surveillance footage obtained by investigators showed Wang attacking the owner and another person intervening to pull him away. The footage also showed Wang taking photos of the injured owner with his cellphone before police arrived.
When officers arrived, Wang raised his hands and said, “Take me, sir. I beat him up,” according to the complaint. Medics transported the victim to the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation.
Emergency room physician Dr. Matthew Nelson reported that the victim sustained five head lacerations requiring 26 staples, severe bruising and swelling around the right eye, and a serious head injury without brain bleeding. Investigators said the victim’s right middle finger was left hanging by the skin after he tried to defend himself. He was admitted to the ICU with a fractured neck.
Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
