Defendants Armilaine Salamat, a.k.a. Armilaine Legaspi Lizama or Armie, and Ana Maria Villadiego Villegas, 42, a.k.a. Anna Marie V. Villegas or Mary Ann, denied the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and forfeiture.
Their jury trial will start on June 7, 2010. The defendants are currently out on bail.
Court-appointed lawyers Loren Sutton and Mark Scoggins are representing the defendants while Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Schuler appeared on behalf of the U.S. government.
Over $100,000 was involved in the fraudulent scheme discovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the assistance of the U.S. Internal Revenue Services, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In the illegal entry case, the five defendants who are out on bail pleaded not guilty to the superseding indictment as charged by the grand jury.
Count one included conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States, counts two to six covered eluded examination and inspection, counts seven to 11 are for the attempted improper entry by an alien.
On Jan. 30, 2010, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrested the defendants — Shixu Huang, male, Lihua Yi, female, Jingfan Zhang, male, Pingping Zhang, female, and Zhanshan Zhang, male — on rubber boats en route to Guam from Rota.
They were represented by court-appointed lawyers Bob O’Connor/Michael Dotts, Bruce Berline, G. Anthony Long, Steven Pixley, and Mark Hanson.
The defense lawyers moved for the dismissal of the earlier information.
Schuler appeared on behalf of Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric O’Malley.
The jury trial for the defendants starts on June 1, 2010.
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