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AGO asks court to dismiss charges vs Rasa’s wife
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Posted on Jun 15 2005
The Attorney General’s Office yesterday asked the Superior Court to dismiss 28 theft charges against the wife of former House Speaker Oscar Rasa.
Assistant attorney general John Eaton said that the interests of justice require the dismissal of the charges against Patricia Rasa with finality.
The court declared that it would hear the dismissal request possibly on July 14, together with another request for grant of witness immunity.
It was not clear as of press time whether the prosecution intended to use Patricia Rasa as witness in the criminal case against the former congressman. Eaton could not be reached for an interview about this possibility, including the current status of the couple’s relationship.
Marital communications privilege precludes either spouse from disclosing a confidential communication made by one to the other. But the privilege only remains valid during a legal marriage and communications made before the marriage or after the marriage ends are not protected. Communications made during the marriage continue to be protected even after divorce or death.
Last Jan. 11, the Rasas contested the 28 counts of theft by deception against them, which the couple allegedly committed on several occasions from Dec. 16, 2003 to June 30, 2004.
The AGO accused the Rasas of scheming to defraud an 82-year-old businessman, Richard J. Szumiel, by obtaining numerous loans and misrepresenting that they would receive over $1 million in land compensation from the government. Verification made the AGO’s investigators revealed 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.
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 Patricia Rasa endorsed almost all the checks issued by Szumiel.
