Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Benedetto, who is prosecuting the case, argued that Hequian Ma is a flight risk, a foreign national, and the complaint involves several felonies, and thus she must be detained.
Court-appointed defense attorney Michael Evangelista said there was no signature of his client on the documents presented by the prosecution.
Ma was charged with two counts of encouraging an alien to come to the United States.
In his affidavit, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Isra D. Harahap said the victims, Weifeng Guo and Yuyan Li, who are both Chinese nationals, reported to the Homeland Security Investigations office on Saipan on Feb. 3, 2011 that they were defrauded by Ma to come to Saipan from China to work at a massage shop.
