‘Legislature should investigate Villagomez’

A CNMI lawmaker is once again calling for the creation of a committee to investigate whether there is cause for impeachment of Lt. Gov. Timothy Villagomez in light of several indictments filed against him.

Under Rep. Tina Sablan’s resolution, the seven House members making up the proposed committee would look into the charges against Villagomez—conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, wire fraud, theft concerning federal funds and bribery, as well as other allegations—and present a report of findings and recommendations to the House of Representatives on impeachment.

House Speaker Arnold Palacios would appoint the members and name the chairperson of the committee. Within 90 days the special investigative committee would submit the report detailing its findings and recommendations.

Last summer, Villagomez, along with his sister Joaquin Santos, and then-Commerce Secretary James Santos, were indicted on charges of bilking the CNMI out of thousands of dollars through business deals involving needless purchases of Rydlyme, a cleaning and de-scaling chemical, for CUC. In January additional bribery charges were filed against Villagomez, alleging that he accepted a $15,000 bribe from the Santos couple for approving the purchase of Rydlyme.

The most recent indictment is extremely difficult to ignore, Sablan said.

“Part of our jobs as legislators would be to investigate those allegations, and, if there is cause for impeachment, to move forward with that,” she said.

Her resolution is not a call for impeachment, Sablan said, but simply a call to begin the process.

“We don’t have to ask him to step down right away, although some of us may personally believe he should,” she said. “But at the very least the ball should be rolling in terms of us doing a formal investigation.”

The representative had called for Villagomez’s resignation after his original indictment, but it was met with resistance by other legislators who felt the criminal process should first be resolved.

Sablan used the recent removal of Rob Blagojevich as Illinois governor as an example for her resolution, she said.

Last week Blagojevich was impeached and unanimously removed from office after several charges were filed against him, including solicitation of brides in exchange for Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.