Tudela has prior ‘ice’ related arrest in 2000

Police Officer 1 Carl Kohler Tudela, who was recently arrested on drug charges, has a prior arrest for allegedly selling methamphetamine or “ice” in 2000, but the Office of the Attorney General dropped the case that same year. Eight years later, Tudela joined the Department of Public Safety.

According to court and police records, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Deborah Muusers served Tudela with an arrest warrant on April 24, 2000, at the former Meitetsu Supermarket in Chalan Kanoa on charges of delivery of a controlled substance and illegal possession of a controlled substance.

The arrest was made after a cooperating source of the DEA/CNMI Drug Task Force bought 23 gross grams of “ice” worth $100 from Tudela at a residence in Illeyan, Saipan.

In her report, Muusers stated that Tudela again contacted the cooperating source in the early part of December 2000, to ask if he/she wants to buy a plate of “ice” for just $50.

In May 2000, then-assistant attorney general Marvin J. Williams wrote Tudela’s counsel, then-assistant public defender Jeffrey Moots, about Tudela’s request for discovery documents.

In that letter, Williams disclosed Tudela’s cooperation with DEA investigations. Williams advised Moots that his client should keep a record of his meeting with law enforcement and that if Tudela ceases to cooperate the matter can proceed normally and be set for trial.

In October 2000, Moots moved to suppress Tudela’s recorded conversations with a confidential informant working with DPS.

Moots asserted that DPS officers engaging in an illegal electronic eavesdropping and surveillance without a warrant amounts to a violation of the CNMI and U.S. constitutions.

The jury trial was supposed to start on Jan. 22, 2001.

At a motions hearing on Dec. 14, 2000, Williams orally moved to dismiss the case.

This prompted then-Superior Court presiding Judge Edward Manibusan to dismiss the case with prejudice, which means it can’t be re-opened again.

DPS Commissioner James C. Deleon Guerrero disclosed Monday that Tudela joined the police cycle academy in August 2008 and joined DPS in December 2008.

Tudela, 38, who is assigned to the DPS Patrol Section, was arrested last Friday at his residence in San Antonio for allegedly buying “ice” from a cooperating source of a joint team of investigators.

Tudela remains in jail. The Superior Court imposed a $100,000 cash bail for his temporary release.