ATTORNEY Richard Miller said his client, Bonifacio “Boni” Sagana, has nothing to hide.
Sagana is on trial for his alleged involvement in a scheme of producing counterfeit CNMI driver’s licenses.
He has pled not guilty to the charge of conspiracy to unlawfully produce an identification document.
In his opening statement Monday, Miller said, “ ‘I have nothing to hide,’ that’s the message [of] Boni Sagana…to Homeland Security investigators when they raided his home, under a search warrant, in Chalan Kanoa on March 8, 2021.”
Sagana fully cooperated with investigators, even allowing and consenting to a search, without a warrant, for his other home in Chalan Piao, Miller added.
“He has nothing to hide, [but] with all his cooperation, it got him here, sitting at the defense table,” the lawyer said.
“Sitting before you,” he told the jurors, “is an innocent man.”
“Sagana is not charged with conspiring to produce fake immigration documents. He is not charged with producing a fake federal document. He is charged with producing a CNMI driver’s license. That is important to remember because the [federal] government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that producing Ms. Bernadita Zata’s driver’s license affected or could have affected interstate commerce,” Miller said.
He told jurors that they will not hear evidence and testimony in the production of identification documents that affected interstate commerce in anyway.
“The evidence will show that the driver’s license issued to Ms. Zata is not ‘Real ID’ compliant. The CNMI government does not have an option in 2017 to get a Real ID license. The license issued to Ms. Zata will show that she could not have fled the CNMI on it. She could have not traveled to another country with that license.”
According to Miller, witnesses will not say that they gave Sagana an I-94 or immigration document, or that they saw him with an I-94, or that he gave anyone at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles an I-94 from Sagana.
“Please keep in mind, when HSI agents searched Sagana’s home in 2021, they found a laptop and his cellphone…and that there was no specialized software on any device to create a document, and there were no internet searches regarding an I-94 document, or about how to create a fake document…and you will not hear evidence that Sagana has the knowhow to create fake documents…you will hear that Sagana helped foreign workers process applications for immigration status,” Miller said.
Without lawful immigration status
For his part, the federal prosecutor, Albert Flores Jr., told jurors that “Sagana is on trial for helping another person in 2017 get a CNMI driver’s license without lawful immigration status.”
Flores said “Sagana speaks good English and was a former police officer and private investigator in the Philippines.”
“Sagana accepts [monetary] donations for his help for long-term residency applications. Sagana also helps others from the Philippines gets driver’s licenses,” he added.
Flores told the jury that they will hear testimony from Bernadita Zata, who is from the Philippines.
“Her immigration status expired in 2014. In 2017, her driver’s license was going to expire. She turned to Sagana for help. She heard Sagana was helping people like her. She approached Sagana who said that he would help her if she pays him. She agreed to pay Sagana about $200,” Flores said.
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court is presiding over the jury trial that began with a jury selection on July 6.
The prosecution must prove, specifically, on Feb. 16, 2017, that Sagana knowingly and intentionally conspired with Bernadita Zata to unlawfully produce a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands driver’s license.
Attorney David Banes appeared as defense co-counsel with Jay Wolfe as lead defense investigator and Chris Hilario as Sagana’s interpreter.
Flores is lead counsel for the prosecution. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Kost is his co-counsel.
On Monday, the prosecution called Special Agent David West of Homeland Security Investigations, HSI Special Agent Fredric Jonas, former deputy CNMI Marshal Eric Esteves and Bernadita Zata.
Unsealed
Judge Manglona, in a ruling, allowed the testimony of Eric Esteves, former deputy CNMI Marshal, in the jury trial.
She said the federal government was not precluded from introducing Esteves’ testimony.
The prosecution sought to call Esteves at trial to testify to the following:
• As a deputy marshal for the CNMI judiciary between February 2018 and March 2022, Esteves would regularly observe Sagana visit the CNMI courthouse and the CNMI Bureau of Motor Vehicles in 2018 and 2019.
• Esteves observed Sagana with stacks of CNMI driver’s license applications and immigration documents like passports.
• While Esteves saw Sagana interact with clerks and cashiers of the BMV and courthouse, he “found it odd” that it did not appear that Sagana made any payments to the cashiers.
• Additionally, Esteves noticed that Sagana would stand by the back entrance to the BMV, which was intended only for BMV staff and their personal visitors.
• Esteves once asked Sagana what he did for a living, to which Sagana responded, “I run papers.”
The prosecution also wants Esteves to testify that he observed Sagana, who was carrying various documents including driver’s license applications, outside the CNMI courthouse during the pandemic, meeting and talking “with a group people of Asian descent prior to them entering the courthouse.”
Judge Manglona said Sagana’s objection to the anticipated testimony of Eric Esteves as impermissible 404(b) evidence is overruled. “Because Esteves’ testimony is inextricably intertwined to the charged conspiracy, the prosecution is not precluded from admitting Esteves’ testimony at trial to provide the jury with the time, place, and circumstances of the acts charged. However, this ruling was based upon the prosecution’s current characterization and proffer of Esteves’ testimony; the defense is not precluded from raising objections to his testimony as it unfolds during trial,” the judge added.
Boni Sagana
