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Woman pleads guilty to using fake license
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Posted on Jun 03 2019
An allegedly overstaying female tourist who was recently arrested for driving a taxi using a fake CNMI driver’s license has pleaded guilty in federal court.
Chunqiao Chen pleaded guilty last Friday to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully produce an identification document as part of a plea deal.
She will be sentenced on July 1 at 1:30pm.
The court-appointed counsel for Chen, Steven P. Pixley, has asked U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona to sentence Chen that day, Friday, but the judge denied this, saying she would order an expedited presentence investigation report in the case.
The U.S. Probation Office was ordered to file the presentence investigation report by June 21.
Assistant U.S. attorney Garth Backe appeared for the U.S. government.
According to the case, Chen paid $300 between May 2, 2019 and May 16, 2019, to obtain the fake CNMI driver’s license.
Chen sent that person a copy of her old driver’s license via WEIXIN, a Chinese messenger service.
One day later, Chen received the fraudulent CNMI driver’s license from the individual in Chalan Kanoa.
Homeland Security Investigations task force officers arrested Chen three weeks ago on Saipan.
HSI task force officer Jesse Dubrall allegedly encountered Chen last May 16 and recognized her as the one from whom he had seized an expired Saipan driver’s license last May 2.
When Dubrall asked Chen why she was driving again when he had previously advised her that she could not legally drive on Saipan, she allegedly presented Dubrall with another driver’s license.
After checking with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Dubrall determined that the Saipan driver’s license was fake.
Chen was subsequently arrested after HSI filed a complaint against her. She was later allowed to post bail and released to a third-party custodian.
