28 theft counts filed vs. ex-Speaker, wife

The Attorney General’s Office yesterday charged former House Speaker Oscar Rasa and his wife Patricia with 28 counts of theft.

Assistant attorney general Grant D. Sanders filed the charging document minutes before the Rasas’ scheduled arraignment at the Superior Court yesterday morning. Presiding judge Robert Naraja reset the arraignment to Monday next week.

Edward Joseph Arriola, the former lawmaker’s attorney, lamented the timing of the filing of the criminal information, saying that his client has the right to be informed of the accusations against him.

“Do you think I can explain 28 counts in a minute or so?” asked Arriola. “[It’s a] waste of money, waste of resources, just because the government was unprepared.”

He claimed that the criminal information formally charging the Rasas should have been filed no later than Dec. 30 before last week’s holidays. Sanders, however, pointed out that there was no court order setting a Dec. 30 deadline for the government to file the charging document.

Arriola asked the court to dismiss the charges, but the judge denied the request, resetting the arraignment instead. The Rasas appeared in court for yesterday’s scheduled arraignment, with Patricia represented by Public Defender Masood Karimopour.

The Rasas are currently out on bail, after Gov. Juan N. Babauta posted $3,000-bonds for each of them two days before Christmas. Police arrested the Rasas at the Aqua Resort Club a day earlier pursuant to arrest warrants issued by Superior Court judge Ramona Manglona.

The AGO accused the Rasas of scheming to defraud 82-year-old businessman Richard J. Szumiel by obtaining loans and misrepresenting that they would receive over $1 million in land compensation claim from the government. Verification made by the AGO’s investigators showed that the Rasas had no pending land compensation claim before the Marianas Public Lands Authority.

The AGO also said the ownership of land that the Rasas represented that they would get compensated for had long been transferred to another person before the defendants’ transactions with Szumiel.

Sanders charged the Rasas with 28 counts of theft by deception (not 82 as reported yesterday), which the couple allegedly committed on several occasions from Dec. 16, 2003 to June 30, 2004.

Based on investigation conducted by the AGO’s investigative unit, Szumiel issued to the Rasas 28 checks totaling $72,000 from December 2003 to June 2004, and some $7,500 in cash. The former lawmaker endorsed one check in the amount of $2,800, while his wife endorsed almost all the checks issued by Szumiel.

The AGIU claimed that the Rasas won Szumiel’s trust of after the couple helped facilitate the cancellation of his adopted son’s farm plot revocation. Before helping out Szumiel’s son, the Rasas frequently visited one of the businessman’s tenants. The AGIU claimed that the Rasas began asking Szumiel for loans after helping his son out.

The Rasas allegedly made promises of repayment as soon as the government pays their purported land compensation claim.

Szumiel, however, began doubting the Rasas’ repayment capability when the former lawmaker failed in June 2004 to make some payment as promised. Szumiel verified with the MPLA, which informed him that the Rasas did not have any pending land compensation claim.