‘OAG intends to pursue trial vs former Rota mayor’

The Office of the Attorney General moved to dismiss the charges of theft against former Rota mayor Melchor A. Mendiola and four other former Rota municipal employees because it intends to proceed against them on the possession or removal of government property charges.

Assistant attorney general Matthew C. Baisley said the filing of possession or removal of government property charges were not intended to prejudge or dictate the Superior Court’s ruling on the government’s pending motion to dismiss the case charging the defendants with theft.

Instead, Baisley said, the case charging the defendants with possession or removal of government property were filed based on the government’s belief, and the Superior Court’s order, that the possession or removal charges are separate and distinct from the theft charges at issue.

In addition, the prosecutor said, the government intends to move forward with the charges of possession or removal of government property, rather than the theft charges at issue.

Baisley explained the government’s strategy in the case against Mendiola and co-defendants in his response yesterday to Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho’s order to show cause on Tuesday.

In his order to show cause, Camacho ordered Baisley to explain why the government filed on Tuesday the penal summons with attached information charging the defendants each with possession or removal of government property when the government filed on Monday a motion to dismiss the case charging the defendants with theft.

Camacho said the order to show cause hearing shall take place first before the court hears the motion to dismiss tomorrow, Friday, at 3:30pm.

In his response to the order to show cause, Baisley said that, as Camacho found, possession or removal of government property is a crime with “very different elements” from the crime of theft.

Accordingly, Baisley said, the government may charge defendants with possession or removal of government property, and that charge is unrelated to the pending charge of theft, as well as the pending motion to dismiss that charge.

In short, the prosecutor said, the government brought the charges of possession or removal of government property because it believes that the defendants are guilty of these charges.

Baisley said the government is free to file the separate and distinct possession and removal charges against the defendants.

The trial of Mendiola and co-defendants Stacey Atalig, Tina Atalig, Alfred Apatang, and Bernard Apatang will be on Rota on Jan. 25, 2016. The theft charges are for jury trial, while possession or removal charges are for bench trial.