Boni Sagana
BONIFACIO “Boni” Sagana, who was found guilty by a jury on June 19, 2023, of conspiring with Bernadita Zata in producing a fake CNMI driver’s license, will be sentenced on Dec. 18 at 1:30 p.m.
The District Court for the NMI previously scheduled Bonifacio’s sentencing for Nov. 24. The reason for the postponement of the sentencing hearing was unknown.
Citing “bad publicity,” Sagana, through his attorney Richard Miller, has asked the federal court for a new trial.
Miller said Sagana’s “Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury was violated by pervasive and false pretrial publicity, in this small community of the Northern Mariana Islands, that Mr. Sagana had fled Saipan before he could be arrested.”
The motion for a new trial was opposed by the federal government. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Albert Flores Jr. and Ashley Kost prosecuted Sagana.
Flores, in his closing remarks during the trial, told jurors: “What is crystal clear, is the clear evidence from the witnesses, what they said. Ms. Zata said, ‘I paid Sagana to help get a license because I did not have [immigration] status.’ There is no mistake about that — that is the crime. The crime that Sagana is guilty of conspiring with Ms. Zata, and she has given clear testimony about that in detail…. The crime is that he agreed to help Ms. Zata at [the Bureau of Motor Vehicles] by submitting a driver’s license application. You don’t need an expert to tell you that you have to have immigration status to get a license.”
As of Sunday, Sagana’s motion for a new trial was still pending.
