Man accused of license fraud claims that he was not advised of his rights

In support of his request to suppress prior statements, a man who is facing federal charges for license fraud is claiming that he was not properly advised of his rights when he was interrogated by Homeland Security investigators.

According to Bonifacio “Boni” Sagana’s lawyer, Richard Miller, he claims that the government is portraying HSI agents as bending over backward to make sure Sagana understood his rights. However, this allegedly was not true.

“If that were the case, they would have read him his rights in his native [language] Tagalog, a language that is spoken widely in Saipan. Moreover, significant factual disputes exist which require an evidentiary hearing. Sagana has asserted in his sworn declaration that he was not advised of his rights and that under the particular circumstances of his interrogation at the HSI office, he did not feel free to leave. He has also disputed whether any questioning or statements took place in the police car on the way to his home in Chalan Piao,” he said.

In addition, Miller stated that from the start of the interrogation, HSI officers had already accused Sagana of lying and of covering up the extent of his involvement in helping Filipinos obtain CNMI driver’s licenses.

“At the HSI office, [special agents] reviewed the written statement that had been typed up for Sagana to sign, [the agent] again implicitly accused Sagana of lying when he warned ‘that it was a crime to lie to federal agents.’ He then confronted Sagana with a photo lineup and statement exhibits of co-defendants and witnesses identifying Sagana as that person. The word ‘co-defendants’ shows that already at the time of this interview, special agents regarded Sagana as a criminally accused defendant, not merely as a suspect or a person of interest,” said the lawyer.

According to court documents, the U.S. District Court for the NMI issued an arrest warrant for Sagana following a grand jury indictment back on Jan. 31, on the charge of conspiring with others to unlawfully produce a CNMI driver’s license.

However, Sagana fled the CNMI before he could be arrested and was only taken into custody last May 16 in Wisconsin.

Sagana was allegedly identified by other defendants facing the same charges as the person who arranged for them to fraudulently obtain a CNMI driver’s license using a counterfeit U.S. immigration visa number.

According to documents from the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, Sagana, a U.S. permanent resident, appeared at an initial hearing on May 16, before judge James R. Sickel.

The charge against Sagana is punishable by up to a maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.