Nine of the 24 defendants have now pleaded guilty a month before the start of their federal jury trial.
The U.S. District Court for the NMI will sentence the five defendants tomorrow.
Last week, Designated Judge David Wiseman imposed a one-year probation on the first four defendants who had admitted their guilt.
Variety learned that they were already “delivered to a duly authorized immigration official for deportation proceedings.”
The five defendants who changed their pleas were assisted by court-appointed lawyers Timothy Bellas, Bruce Mailman, Richard W. Pierce, Glenn Jewell, and Matthew Gregory.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kirk Schuler and Beverly McCallum are prosecuting the case.
Court records showed that Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s masseuse, Qingmei Cheng, was the only one employed among the 24 Chinese nationals who were arrested for attempting to enter Guam on a boat from Saipan.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office described Cheng and Jian Li as the group’s ring leaders.
Cheng listed Yu Yu Spa as her employer and claimed that she earned $600 a month.
She didn’t have money when she was arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jian Li, for his part, declared that he had $4,500 cash.
The other defendants who declared having cash money were Xiaoyan Chen, $3,200; Jian Dong, $300; Jianbo Ying, $560; Zhiguo Lu, $200; Dong Wang, $500; Dongxiang Wang, $800; Shiying Wei, $200; Jingkai Yu, $20,000; Yi Wu, $340; Lei Xu, $500; Zhaohai Zheng, $1,000; Weikun Zhong, $3,000; and Bo Zhou, $500.
