Former U.S. Attorney for the U.S. District Courts for Guam and the NMI Leonardo Rapadas believes the reason why the U.S. government did not prosecute then-governor Benigno R. Fitial when the massage issue broke out in 2010 was because they were concerned at the time about the criminal case of the masseuse.<\/p>\n
In an interview last week, Rapadas said they wanted to make sure at the time that the masseuse\u2019s case would not be compromised.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur determination at that time was there wasn\u2019t any. So I think maybe what happened at that time was that we\u2019re more concerned about the case with that masseuse,\u201d said Rapadas, who is now the CNMI\u2019s chief prosecutor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time that Rapadas spoke about the massage issue. When the incident happened on Jan. 8, 2010, he was the U.S. Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the NMI. In June 2010, Alicia Limtiaco succeeded Rapadas as U.S. Attorney for both districts.<\/p>\n
Citizen activist Glen Hunter recently stated that his focus right now is to ask the federal government to immediately install the CNMI\u2019s own U.S. Attorney.<\/p>\n
Hunter believes that if the CNMI had one when Fitial \u201ccommitted many of his many major crimes, a CNMI-based U.S. Attorney would not have turned a blind eye,\u201d rather than for the public to wait over five years for the local courts and the Office of the Public Auditor to bring Fitial to justice.<\/p>\n
Rapadas said the massage incident happened many years ago and that his memory is fuzzy on why the U.S. government did not prosecute Fitial.<\/p>\n
He, however, recalled that one of the things that they did was they tried to bring Fitial in and speak to him about what happened.<\/p>\n
Rapadas said there are issues that are not covered by federal or local laws so the federal and the Commonwealth governments work together to determine how to best address a particular situation if there\u2019s any violation of law.<\/p>\n
Fitial signed a plea agreement with the government and pleaded guilty last May 13 to misconduct in public office and conspiracy to commit theft of services.<\/p>\n
Last June 24, Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman slapped Fitial with a one-year prison term. Gov. Eloy S. Inos later commuted the sentence.<\/p>\n
The offense of misconduct in public office refers to the time when Fitial had his masseuse\u2014a female Chinese who was at that time a federal prisoner at the Department of Corrections\u2014temporarily released so she could massage him at his house on Jan. 8, 2010.<\/p>\n
The conspiracy to commit theft of services refers to Fitial\u2019s role in former attorney general Edward T. Buckingham\u2019s efforts to evade lawful service of process during his departure from the Commonwealth at the Francisco C. Ada\/Saipan International Airport on Aug. 3 or 4, 2012.<\/p>\n
In documents submitted in court, Fitial\u2019s lawyer, Stephen J. Nutting, explained the government\u2019s side of the story in the massage issue.<\/p>\n
According to Nutting, while many have chosen to believe there was something untoward with the massage, Fitial in fact had an ongoing contract with the massage therapist\u2019s employer, which he had been paying personally for many months prior to the therapist\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n
Nutting said when the therapist failed to show up for the daily treatment, Fitial contacted the agency and learned that his massage therapist had been arrested.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said that in the late evening of Jan. 7, 2010, on the very eve of his second inauguration celebration as governor, Fitial was suffering from severe and excruciating back pain.<\/p>\n
Nutting said it was only when the pain became too much to bear\u2014and with the inauguration scheduled for the following day\u2014that Fitial contacted the Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n
At that time, Nutting said, Fitial learned that the Chinese masseuse was in the custody of DOC on federal charges related to immigration matters.<\/p>\n
Nutting said that Fitial contacted then-DOC director Dolores San Nicolas and asked if an escort for the masseuse to treat him would be permissible.<\/p>\n
San Nicolas later stated that she attempted to contact the Attorney General and U.S. Marshal Don Hall, but neither responded to her late-evening calls.<\/p>\n
Nutting said San Nicolas made what she later described as an \u201cexecutive decision\u201d and arranged for the prisoner to be escorted to Fitial\u2019s residence, all the while in the custody of DOC personnel.<\/p>\n
Nutting said the following morning, the AG and then-U.S. Assistant Attorney General Eric O\u2019Malley were notified of what had transpired.<\/p>\n
Nutting said a hearing was held that same morning in front of U.S. District Court for the NMI then-Chief Judge Alex Munson.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said at the hearing, Munson concurred with the AG that even with DOC escorts, such releases should not happen again in the future.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Nutting said, no charges were brought by the U.S. Attorney for the AG against Fitial, or anyone else connected with the escort.<\/p>\n
\u201cNor did Judge Munson impose any sanctions or reprimand against Mr. Fitial or the Department of Corrections for their actions related to the escort,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former U.S. Attorney for the U.S. District Courts for Guam and the NMI Leonardo Rapadas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,446,6014,320],"class_list":["post-207905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-doc","tag-dolores-san-nicolas","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}