‘We are operating without a trial date’

Despite the criminal lawsuit filed against former governor Ralph DLG Torres approaching its second-year anniversary, there is still no clear trial date set.

In a previous interview with assistant attorney general James Kingman, he shared that to date, there still isn’t a clear trial date set in Torres’ original criminal case.

“In the ongoing criminal case, we don’t have a trial date, we have not had a scheduling order, we’ve provided the court our available dates multiple times, we’ve got an outstanding ruling or two and there hasn’t been any sort of movement.,” he said.

Torres has been vacated numerous times with the most recent trial date being June 5. However, after the June 5 status conference, Superior Court judge pro tem Arthur Barcinas has yet to schedule a trial date in this case.

The OAG filed its criminal suit against Torres back in April 2022.

According to the complaint against Torres, the first two counts of misconduct in public office goes back to April 12, 2018, when Torres allegedly issued himself and his wife first-class airline tickets paid for by local funds.

“On or about April 12, 2018, on Saipan, Torres, while being governor of the CNMI, violated 1 CMC $ 7407(f) in that he caused to be issued airline tickets for business class, first class, or other premium class travel for himself [and Diann Torres] using Commonwealth funds, in violation of and made punishable by 6 CMC $ 3202,” the complaint stated.

Torres allegedly repeated these violations on June 8, July 11, Aug. 13, Aug.t 16, Sept. 25, Nov. 15, Nov. 27, and Dec. 18, 2018, making up the remaining 10 counts of misconduct in public office.

Aside from 12 counts of misconduct, the OAG also charged Torres with theft for the same violations.

Lastly, the OAG is accusing Torres of contempt for his failure to comply with the House Committee on Judiciary & Governmental Operations’ subpoena on Dec. 10, 2021.

The court has since dismissed the contempt charge against Torres.

Kingman, last year, filed a new case charging Torres with contempt anew but that case has yet to move forward as Torres’ defense team has argued that he is constitutionally entitled to a probable cause hearing.

The parties were ordered to file a brief regarding the argument and are scheduled to return to court on Feb. 29 for a hearing on the matter.