Boni Sagana
BONIFACIO “Boni” Sagana has notified the federal court that he will appeal its judgment in his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Sagana, through attorney Richard Miller, said they will appeal all orders and rulings prior to, during and after trial.
On July 19, 2023, a jury found Sagana guilty of conspiring with Bernadita Zata in producing a fraudulent CNMI driver’s license.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Albert Flores and Ashley Kost prosecuted the case.
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI recently sentenced Sagana to 24 months in prison for his involvement in a scheme to produce fraudulent CNMI driver’s licenses.
After serving his sentence, Sagana will be placed on supervised release for three years. He will also perform 50 hours of community service in lieu of a fine and at the direction of the U.S. Probation Office.
Judge Manglona recommended to the Bureau of Prisons that Sagana be placed in FCI Oxford or another federal correctional institution near Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Citing “bad publicity,” Sagana, through his attorney, earlier 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 federal court denied Sagana’s motion for a new trial. He remains out of custody.
