ANGELES CITY – After years of spending Valentines Day together in dinner with their family, Sen. Lito Lapid and his wife Marissa will remain thousands of miles apart on Feb. 14.
On Valentines, Marissa will remain in her home in Clark county, Nevada still wearing an electronic monitoring anklet, while her husband will be at the Senate donning a judge’s toga.
In a phone interview with Punto yesterday, Marissa’s American lawyer Eliot Krieger said Marissa has not asked the Nevada district court to be allowed to travel to the Philippines or elsewhere.
Krieger is a former Assistant United States Attorney with the US Department of Justice.
While Krieger said that Marissa could petition the court to allow her temporary freedom to go elsewhere, even to the Philippines, she has not manifested any such plan.
Marissa was arrested at the Las Vegas international airport last Jan. 15 on charges of bulk dollar smuggling involving some $50,000 at the same airport on Nov. 27 last year.
Pending the first hearing on her case, the court ordered her not to leave Clark County and wear a monitoring anklet.
Krieger cited past clients whose movements were also limited by the court, but were allowed temporary liberty even outside the United States.
This is because of guarantees, such as the $500 lien imposed by the Nevada court on Marissa’s property in Las Vegas, he noted.
Lapid’s chief of staff lawyer Filmer Abrajano said that in past Valentines’ day, the senator unfailingly spent dinner with Marissa and their family. “He has always really been a family man when it comes to Valentines Day,” he said.
Abrajano said that Lapid has no plans to fly to Las Vegas to be with his wife in Clark County, as “he will be too busy in the Senate sessions and with the impeachment hearing.”
“On Valentines Day, the senator would be attending the session in the Senate in the morning, and then will be in the impeachment trial in the afternoon,” he said.
“But I can suppose they will greet each other Happy Valentines on the phone,” he added.
Krieger said that as of yesterday, he had not received any notice from the Nevada court on when Marissa’s first hearing would be.
It was initially slated last Feb. 7, but the court deferred it but said it would be rescheduled anytime within 60 days from last Feb. 7, he added.
Krieger, who is a senior partner in the Jarvis, Krieger and Sullivan Law Office in Las Vegas, also said that he was not sure whether a grand jury would be constituted to determine whether there was “probable cause” in her case.
He explained that the other scenario would be a preliminary hearing which includes the prosecutor and the defendant’s attorney to engage in proceedings that allow the introduction of evidence, the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, and limited forms of disclosure of information. This could lead to the defendant’s release.
In the case of a grand jury, ordinary citizens would act as prosecutors to determine whether there is probable cause to indict the defendant. “The hearings of this jury are hold in secrecy,” Krieger said.
Krieger has doctorate from Johns Hopkins University and another degree from Harvard Law School.
Considered one of the top litigators in Southern California, for the past five years, Eliot has been handling family law matters as well as criminal matters.
