Disbarred lawyer found guilty of criminal contempt

Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman has found disbarred lawyer Antonio M. Atalig guilty of criminal contempt for not complying with the court’s order requiring him to begin serving his sentence in a domestic violence case by Feb. 15, 2014. 
“I do not find Atalig’s testimony credible at all,” Wiseman said at yesterday’s hearing.

He described Atalig’s testimony as “highly incredible.”

Atalig will be sentenced on April 9 at 1:30pm.

Attorney Robert H. Myers, counsel for the 57-year-old Atalig, told Saipan Tribune after the hearing that he and Atalig will discuss their options.

Assistant attorney general Heather Barcinas, who represented the government, said the offense carries a maximum prison term of six months.

Atalig pleaded guilty last year to assault and battery, two counts of disturbing the peace, and criminal contempt. Wiseman sentenced him to eight months in prison but granted Atalig’s request to delay reporting to the Department of Corrections because he needed to settle many obligations first.

Wiseman orally granted Atalig’s request, ordering him to report to DOC on or before Feb. 15, 2014. Atalig submitted a proposed order to start serving his sentence on Feb. 15, 2015. Wiseman subsequently signed the order but later corrected the year to 2014.

On Feb. 25, 2014, Myers, on behalf of Atalig, asked Wiseman to extend once more the time for Atalig to serve his sentence, claiming, among other things, that the typographical error was due to a recording error from his handwritten notes to typewritten form. Wiseman rejected the request.

Wiseman then issued an arrest warrant for Atalig after learning that he did not report to DOC on Feb. 15. Police, court marshals, and probation officers failed to find the defendant.

On March 7, Atalig surrendered to DOC to begin serving his eight-month prison term.

Wiseman then issued an order to show cause, directing Atalig to explain why he should not be held in contempt.

At yesterday’s hearing, a probation officer testified that after receiving a copy of the arrest warrant on Feb. 28, they searched for Atalig between four to five days but could not locate him.

A court staff also testified that she called Atalig and informed him about the order that he should turn in to DOC on Feb. 15, 2014.

Atalig testified that he prepared a handwritten order for his extension and asked someone to type it because he had no computer at that time. Atalig said he did not notice that the reporting date was written Feb. 15, 2015.

“I did not notice it. It was not intentional,” he said.

Atalig said he later realized upon seeing the proposed order that Wiseman signed that it was 2015.

“When I looked at it, boy, I have enough time!” he said, drawing laughs from some people in the courtroom.

Atalig admitted that he received a call from a court staff, but he misunderstood it as relating to a child support case.

As to the question why he reported to DOC only on March 7, Atalig said it was only at DOC when he learned that there was an arrest warrant for him.

Atalig said he reported to DOC on March 7 after someone informed him a day earlier that the police were looking for him.

Atalig said he was processing some paperwork, going back and forth to and from As Lito and Capital Hill during that period.

In his ruling, Wiseman said that before being suspended from practice of law, Atalig had 25 years of law practice experience. Wiseman said that no judge would grant one year to defer an order for a convicted person to report to Corrections. He said Atalig did nothing but delay the judicial process.

In May 2012, Wiseman suspended Atalig and Reynaldo O. Yana from practicing law in the CNMI for refusing to return $1.1 million in attorneys’ fees that the two obtained from the Angel Malite estate. In January 2014 the CNMI Supreme Court disbarred the two lawyers.