Previous Story
IN SEX ABUSE OF A MINOR CASE
Judge acquits Andres Roberto
Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja acquitted yesterday 50-year-old Andres B. Roberto of charges that he sexually assaulted a minor on Saipan.
Naraja found Roberto not guilty of sexual abuse of a minor in the third degree, assault and battery, and disturbing the peace. He will issue a written order.
The bench trial began last Aug. 22. The trial was continued several times due to some legal issues, among other reasons. The trial resumed in March 2017.
After hearing the parties’ closing arguments two weeks ago, the judge said he would announce his verdict yesterday.
Defense counsel Joaquin Torres later said he is happy with the judge’s decision.
“This is not the first, I’m sure there are more stories that are made up for various reasons,” he said.
Torres said they are just happy that Naraja believed Roberto’s view and his testimony.
Torres said the burden of proof always rests with the government.
He said his client testified that he was not at the scene. “There’s no way he was there,” the defense lawyer said.
Torres called to the stand four witnesses, including Roberto. Assistant attorney general Jonathan Glass Jr., counsel for the government, called six witnesses.
Police said Roberto allegedly handed $60 for a fundraiser to the 14-year-old girl, then hugged her, kissed her on the mouth, squeezed her breast, and rubbed her butt in the back of a house in the evening of April 19, 2016.
The girl said she pushed Roberto away, threw the money at him, and ran into the house.
Roberto is the brother of former CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife official Raymond B. Roberto, who was acquitted in 2014 by a federal jury of charges that he enticed three minors to engage in prostitution and tampered with a witness while he was in jail. Torres and David Lujan served as counsel for Raymond Roberto in that case.
