Court denies Villagomez’s motions

The U.S. District Court for the CNMI has denied the eight motions that Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez filed last week, including the motion to dismiss his criminal indictment due to a failure to state an offense.

In a ruling issued yesterday, U.S. District Court for the NMI chief judge Alex R. Munson maintained that the indictment sufficiently charges the defendants with conspiracy, wire fraud and theft concerning federal funds.

He said the indictment tracks the language of the statutes under which the defendants were charged and spells out enough facts to put the defendants on notice of the charges against them.

Munson also denied the motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge, saying the transaction is not confusing, unduly prejudicial and does not create an undue hardship for the defendants. He pointed out that any potential confusion to the jury may be cured with a proper jury instruction.

Earlier, Villagomez argued that the charges against him were fabricated and that the federal court should dismiss the indictment.

Villagomez, former Commerce Secretary James Santos, Joaquina Santos, and former CUC executive director Anthony Guerrero were indicted with conspiring to bilk CUC out of thousands of dollars through business deals involving needless chemical purchases for CUC.

The trial of Villagomez, along with his co-defendants, has been set for March 23, 2009.

Villagomez, through counsel David J. Lujan, filed the eight motions last Dec. 11.

One of the motions urged the court to dismiss the indictment for outrageous government conduct, alleging that the government violated their rights to due process, that the government investigators failed to warn witnesses that they were not obliged to speak to them and instead created the appearance that the witnesses were required to cooperate; that investigation was civil in nature and not criminal; and that the investigators enlisted Guerrero to call Villagomez and record the telephone calls.

Munson said, though, that the allegations are “conclusory and unsubstantiated.”

The court said the only evidence submitted, which was a transcript of recorded telephone calls, includes no implication of misconduct.

Munson said that “even assuming all of the allegations are true, the actions are far from excessive, flagrant, scandalous, intolerable or offensive.”

The federal court also denied the defendant’s motion to compel discovery because the government has produced all the documents and discussed the case with the defense counsel.

The court also denied the motion to conduct voir dire, the motion to use a jury questionnaire, and the motion to dismiss joinders as untimely.