Superior Court Associate Judge David Wiseman remanded Shafiqul Islam to the custody of the Department of Corrections after a six-person jury convicted him.
Islam was found guilty of one count of sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree, and one count of attempted sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree.
Two victims were involved. Islam had denied the charges.
Wiseman ordered the release of Islam’s $5,000 bail after he was taken into custody by the CNMI Marshals Service who escorted him to the Department of Corrections facility.
Assistant Attorney General Brian Gallagher, who prosecuted the case, commended the jury.
“The interest of justice has been served,” Gallagher said.
Islam’s counsel, Assistant Public Defender Michael Brown, declined to comment.
The jury’s decision was handed down shortly after 3 p.m., three days after the court started the trial and a day after the jurors began their deliberations.
One of the victims testified that Islam repeatedly sexually abused him.
The 12-year-old victim said he was playing hide and seek with his brother, when he passed by Islam’s room at a barracks behind a mosque in Garapan.
The victim said he was asked by Islam if he wanted $2 and asked to go inside the room where the boy was repeatedly abused.
An 11-year-old boy, the other victim’s brother, also testified in court that Islam attempted to sexually abuse him.
Police arrested Islam last year while he was about to leave the island, the prosecution said.
The abuse occurred between August and September 2009.
Islam is facing a prison term of up to eight years.
Wiseman set the sentencing hearing for April 28, 2010.
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