BONIFACIO “Boni” Sagana’s travel documents have expired, his court-appointed attorney Richard Miller told Magistrate Judge Heather Kennedy of the District Court for the NMI at a status conference hearing on Wednesday.
Sagana has been charged with conspiracy to unlawfully produce an identification document.
Judge Kennedy told Miller and Assistant U.S. Attorney Garth Backe, the prosecutor, that she scheduled a status conference to discuss setting an arraignment and whether Sagana will return to Saipan or if the case will be remanded to Wisconsin.
Miller said his client traveled to Wisconsin for work on a valid card, advance parole and U.S. Employment Authorization Document or EAD. “That card is now expired,” Miller added.
“He has a son who is a U.S. citizen [who] petitioned him for a green card…that petition is pending…so right now Sagana has no valid travel document to get on a plane and come back here,” Miller said.
After hearing from both parties, Judge Kennedy set a status conference for June 29, 2022, at 9 a.m. and allowed Sagana to appear by telephone.
She directed the prosecutor to report on the U.S. Marshals Service’s ability to transport the defendant if needed and instructed the defense attorney to report on the defendant’s ability to appear by video teleconference for future proceedings.
Sagana, for his part, told the court that he is represented by a U.S. public defender in Wisconsin. He said he will ask the public defender to assist him in a video teleconference.
Sagana appeared at the hearing Wednesday through tele-conference.
A former long-time guest worker and guest-worker advocate in the CNMI, Sagana was arrested on May 16, 2022, in Wisconsin on the charge of conspiring with others to unlawfully produce a CNMI driver’s license.
On Jan. 31, 2022, following a grand jury indictment, the District Court for the NMI issued an arrest warrant for Sagana.
According to other defendants, Sagana was the person identified by other defendants who arranged for them to fraudulently obtain a CNMI driver’s license using a counterfeited U.S. immigration visa number.
Sagana, however, had already left Saipan before he could be arrested.
According to the documents obtained by Variety in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin (Green Bay), Sagana appeared at an initial hearing on May 16, 2022, before Judge James R. Sickel.
The Wisconsin judge released Sagana under his own recognizance. The defendant is currently out of custody.
