Defendant in forgery case pleads guilty

One of two men indicted in federal court for conspiring to use and forge credit cards and checks that were stolen from a postal office entered a guilty plea yesterday.

Gary Lee Castro Pangelinan, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to receive and possess stolen mail and three counts of possession of stolen mail.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Alex R. Munson accepted Pangelinan’s plea and set the sentencing for June 13, 2006 at 9:30am.

Munson granted Pangelinan’s request to be released on the same conditions as the court had previously set.

Assistant U.S. attorney Jamie Bowers stated in the indictment that between Oct. 27, 2005 and Nov. 10, 2005, Pangelinan and co-defendant John Richard Palacios Guerrero conspired to possess mail matter that had been stolen from the U.S. Postal Office.

Bowers said the object of the conspiracy was to receive and use the stolen checks and credit cards to unlawfully obtain cash and items of value from various businesses in the CNMI.

Bowers said that between Oct. 27, 2005 and Nov. 10, 2005, defendants possessed mail matter stolen from the Capitol Hill Rural Branch Contract Postal Unit Mail Branch, including various personal checks, business checks and credit cards belonging to other individuals.

CHRB is an authorized depository for U.S. Mail on Saipan.

The prosecutor said the defendants used a typewriter to alter several of the stolen checks.

In January 2006, the Attorney General’s Office filed a criminal case against Pangelinan for altering a check of Jesus Muna and Dorothea Muna, to be made payable to the defendant in the amount of $800.

In the latter part of November 2005, police arrested Pangelinan for theft and forgery.

In that case, a detective stated in court papers that a woman called the Department of Public Safety on Nov. 16, 2005, complaining that her checks were possibly stolen and had been forged.

The detective learned that one of the woman’s checks was cashed on Nov. 1, 2005 at the First Hawaiian Bank.

The victim originally wrote the check to Pentagon Federal Credit Union in the U.S. mainland for her credit card account and mailed it on Oct. 26, 2005.

The victim was surprised when she received her bank statement that showed the check was paid out to Pangelinan. She also expressed concern about the other check, which she mailed on that same day that she learned of the postal office burglary.

The postal office was reportedly burglarized on Oct. 27, 2005, a day after the victim mailed her checks.