THE District Court for the NMI on Thursday sentenced to time served six other Chinese nationals who were arrested last month for attempting to illegally enter Guam.
Fuquan Miao and Qingjun Chen were sentenced to 15 days; Huiping Shangguan, Qin Chen and Ziyou Xu to 13 days; and Xiping Gao to 10 days — all time served, and followed by one year of supervised release.
The defendants were also required to pay a $100 special assessment fee. In addition, their passports shall be given to Immigration Customs Enforcement by the U.S. Probation Office, and, once they are prepared to depart the CNMI, they are to contact the U.S. Probation Office or the Immigration Customs Enforcement to deliver the passport to the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
With their respective court-appointed lawyers, the defendants appeared before Senior Judge Alex R. Munson in separate sentencing proceedings.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Ashley Kost represented the federal government.
Following the sentencing, the court granted Kost’s motions to dismiss the complaints.
The court likewise granted her request for a final order of forfeiture of Shangguan’s $4,000, Qin Chen’s $3,800 and Qingjun Chen’s $9,000.
Kost told the court that the U.S. government was not seeking a forfeiture order on Miao, but $122 was seized from him that was not related to the criminal case, and would be returned to him.
Miao told the court he does not have money to buy a plane ticket, but will make arrangements to try and obtain the funds. He said he understood that he must depart the CNMI within three months.
Gao reported to the court that she, too, does not have enough money to purchase her ticket. The court ordered that if and when there is a return of funds held by her boyfriend, it will be given to her lawyer, Joe McDoulett, and the money is not to be distributed unless by order of the court.
As for Xu, Kost said the U.S. government was not seeking a forfeiture order.
Two other defendants, Bin Weng and Yuxing Lin, were sentenced to time served (10 days) earlier last week.
All of the defendants were charged with “engaging in a conspiracy [to transport, move, or attempt to transport or move] an alien within the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the alien came to, entered, and remained in the United States in violation of law.”
