Previous Story
Probable cause found to charge 2 men with theft of IPI copper wire
Probable cause has been found to charge two men with stealing 39 feet of copper wire worth $1,018 from the Imperial Pacific International Ltd.’s storage compound in Lower Base.
At a preliminary hearing yesterday, Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho found probable cause to believe that Mario O. Sablan and Frank T. Pangelinan may have conspired to steal the wires.
Sablan and Pangelinan, both 40, were directed to respond to the charges.
The judge ruled to include the crime of attempted theft as a lesser included offense of theft and dismissed the charge.
Arraignment will be on July 24 at 9am.
At the hearing, assistant attorney general Jonathan Wilberscheid, counsel for the government, called to the witness stand police detective John K. Wabol, the officer-in-charge of the case.
Attorney Matthew T. Gregory is court-appointed counsel for Sablan, while assistant public defender Cindy Nesbit is counsel for Pangelinan.
The parties waived any conflict of interest regarding Imperial Pacific.
After the hearing, the defendants were remanded into the custody of the Department of Corrections.
According to police, two officers were heading north by the Gov. Eloy S. Inos Peace Park along Industrial Drive in Lower Base when an employee of Imperial Pacific flagged them down last May 3 in the morning to report a copper wire theft.
The Imperial Pacific employee disclosed that he saw Sablan pulling copper wire through the chain link fence surrounding the Imperial Pacific storage compound. Pangelinan allegedly served as a lookout.
The officers arrested Sablan and Pangelinan at the scene.
