Former Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Petersburg, for his part, accepted the job offered by Chief Public Defender Adam Hardwicke at the Public Defender’s Office.
Last July, Petersburg resigned from the AGO effective this month because of “personal reasons.”
He was supposed to work as a prosecutor in New Mexico.
Before he left the island to visit his family in Iowa early this month, Petersburg told Variety that he really wanted to become a defense attorney even when he was still in law school.
He will begin work as assistant public defender on Sept. 12.
Currently, there are three PDO attorneys: Hardwicke, Douglas Hartig, and Matthew Meyer, the former Senate legal counsel.
Petersburg will fill in the slot left by Miller.
Earlier, Assistant Public Defenders Michael Brown and Adam Miles resigned from PDO.
Brown completed his two-year PDO contract, and has returned to Virginia to satisfy his pre-med college credits. He is scheduled to attend medical school in the Philippines this September.
Miles completed his one-year contract at PDO and returned to San Diego, California after over three years on Saipan.
He earlier worked as law clerk for Superior Court Judge Kenneth L. Govendo.
A PDO investigator was recently hired by the U.S. District Court for the NMI, another is leaving this month, and a staffer will retire in November.
Hardwicke earlier told Variety: “The Office of the Public Defender is in a transition period and during this time it will continue to provide zealous representation to all PDO clients.”
