Ex-DOC officer gets 353 days for ‘ice’ possession, assault on cop

Former Department of Corrections officer Thomas Aquino Cabrera Camacho was found to have a delusional disorder and was sentenced Wednesday in Superior Court to 353 days of time served and one year of suspended sentence for two criminal cases.

It means that the 55-year-old Camacho will be released from the Department of Corrections on Sunday, May 8, 2016.

At the sentencing hearing, Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho expressed concern as there appears to be no meaningful way to provide mental health care to defendants with mental illness and/or disability in the CNMI criminal justice system.

Judge Camacho said the court is faced with putting a mentally ill person in prison without the proper mental health professionals or a hospital that releases a patient with a history of violence.

At the hearing, Judge Camacho inquired if DOC and the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. are equipped to handle defendants with mental illness and/or disability.

Assistant public defender Matthew Meyer, counsel for Thomas Camacho, stated that DOC does not have the mental health personnel or doctors to administer the proper medications.

Meyer said CHC will not take any mental patients who have violent behaviors so simply releases mental health patients if they become violent.

Thomas Camacho, through counsel Meyer, and assistant attorney general Matthew C. Baisley, counsel for the government, signed a plea agreement.

The defendant pleaded guilty to illegal possession of controlled substance in one case, and assault and battery in a separate case.

According to the factual basis of the plea deal, Thomas Camacho struck Police Officer David Rabauliman with a baton on April 9, 2015, in Chalan Piao. The officer did not seek medical treatment.

The defendant illegally possessed crystal methamphetamine or “ice” at Naked Fish Bar and Grill in Susupe on May 11, 2015.

As part of the plea deal, the parties agreed to dismiss the remaining charges in the two cases.

Meyer and Baisley signed and filed their justification for plea agreement, stating that with proper counseling at the Community Guidance Center, defendant Thomas Camacho is not a danger to himself or the community.

The parties disclosed that Dr. Martin Blinder diagnosed the defendant as having delusional order.

The parties said Blinder states that absent delusional disorder defendant Thomas Camacho would not have committed the offenses he is charged with.

Blinder conducted a mental evaluation on the defendant last Feb. 23 because at the time of his arrest on both cases, he was talking about being a secret agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Judge Camacho said it is not clear in Blinder’s report if the use of methamphetamine or “ice” was the cause of the mental illness.

The Office of the Attorney General did not contest Blinder’s findings.

Judge Camacho sentenced the defendant to 353 days of time served for illegal possession of controlled substance and one year of suspended sentence for assault and battery.

The defendant was placed on one year of supervised probation and required to perform 300 hours of community work service, and pay $25 court costs and $100 probation fee.

The defendant was ordered to immediately report to certified substance abuse counselor Crispin M. Sablan for an initial drug assessment.

Sablan will provide a drug rehabilitation plan to the Office of Adult Probation.