PEDRO Barcinas Mendiola of Tinian appeared before Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho for a bail hearing on Monday.
Mendiola, 62, was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery to include domestic violence, and disturbing the peace.
According to court documents, Mendiola has a long rap sheet with some cases going back as far as 1981.
Judge Camacho imposed a $20,000 cash bail on Mendiola, who was remanded to the custody of the Department of Corrections.
The defendant was ordered to return to court for a preliminary hearing on March 6 at 10 a.m., and for an arraignment on March 11 at 9 a.m.
The Public Defender’s Office was appointed to represent Mendiola while Assistant Attorney General Heather Barcinas appeared for the government.
The complaint
On Feb. 23, an off-duty police officer and her mother filed a complaint with the Tinian DPS against Mendiola.
The mother told police that Mendiola, her husband, had been accusing her of cheating on him.
She said on Feb. 22, at around 11:30 p.m., Mendiola asked her to go and ride with him. Once inside the vehicle, she said Mendiola began shouting at her and accusing her of having a sexual relation with another person.
She said Mendiola took her to Suicide Cliff memorial and told her to get out of the car, adding that he would throw her off the cliff.
She begged Mendiola to stop and repeatedly told him she really needed to use the restroom. She said Mendiola drove back to their home as he continued to accuse her of infidelity.
When they arrived at their residence, the wife said she went into the bathroom while Mendiola continued to shout at her.
Their daughter came out of the bedroom and asked her mother what was going on. But Mendiola was still around, and mother and daughter could not talk much.
The next day, around 6:30 a.m., the mother woke up and used the bathroom. She said Mendiola came from outside the house and dragged her into the living room where he began slapping her head, face and chest multiple times.
The victim said she does not remember how many times Mendiola slapped her, but she peed on herself while shouting for help.
She said Mendiola was also shouting at her, saying, “You better admit today…I will never stop until I kill you.”
At this point, their daughter came out from her bedroom.
The victim’s daughter told police that she saw Mendiola slapping her mother’s face with both his hands.
She said she immediately separated them and kept yelling at her father to stop.
She said her father stepped away but was still in the living room with them. She said her mother peed on herself during the altercation.
The daughter said her father continued to shout at her mother, accusing her of cheating on him. The daughter said he then grabbed his shotgun and loaded bullets into it.
She said her father kept shouting at her mom, telling her to admit that she was cheating on him. He also said he would kill both of them as he held onto his shotgun, the daughter added.
The daughter said she took her five-year-old son and her service-firearm. She, her son and mother then got into her vehicle and left their residence.
After dropping her son at school, they headed to DPS and reported the incident.
She told the police she was afraid for her own life, as well as for the lives of her mother and her five-year-old son.
