Prosecutor Brown-Badawy leaving for Virgin Islands

Assistant attorney general Margo Brown-Badawy is leaving the CNMI after serving at the Office of the Attorney General’s Criminal Division for two and a half years.

Brown-Badawy’s last day of office will be on Nov. 6, 2014. She will move to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where she is planning to continue to work as a prosecutor.

The prosecutor said she is leaving the Commonwealth because her husband, assistant U.S. attorney Rami S. Badawy, has been transferred to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Brown-Badawy

“We all love Saipan, but it is just hard to be away from family for two and a half years. And the flights are long,” she said.

For Margo-Brown, leaving the Commonwealth is definitely bittersweet. She said her experience here has been great. “We have some of the best staff,” said Brown-Badawy, adding she is going to miss the camaraderie at the Office of the Attorney General.

After working in the prosecutor’s office for two and a half years, she said they obtained a lot of experience that they would not have had in the U.S. mainland.

Brown-Badawy believes that the OAG Criminal Division has been doing a great job as it is.

After doing federal policy for Health and Human Services as a policy analyst in Washington D.C., Brown-Badawy came to work in the CNMI as a criminal prosecutor in April 2012. It was her first time to be a prosecutor.

Since 2002, Brown-Badawy’s assignments have been sex crimes, domestic violence, and crimes against children.

Brown-Badawy and chief prosecutor Brian Flaherty successfully prosecuted habitual offender Joseph A. Crisostomo for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of bartender Emerita Romero.

On Nov. 7, 2014, Brown-Badawy’s colleague, assistant attorney general Barbara Cepeda, is moving back to Guam.

Last August, assistant attorney general Chemere McField also left the CNMI, while AAG James McAllister moved from the OAG’s Criminal Division to the Civil Division. McAllister resigned in the first week of October for a job in the U.S. mainland.
Brown-Badawy said they’re hiring a new prosecutor by Oct. 27, 2014, and that there might be another one soon after.
After Brown-Badawy‘s and Cepeda’s departure, the OAG’s Criminal Division will have four remaining prosecutors—Flaherty, Heather Barcinas, Chester Hinds, and Graef Clayton.