Superior Court associate judge pro tempore Timothy H. Bellas has denied former Department of Public Lands secretary John DelRosario\u2019s motion to disqualify the Office of the Attorney General from representing Lt. Gov. Victor B. Hocog and Finance Secretary Larrisa C. Larson in Del Rosario\u2019s lawsuit against them over the transfer of $400,000 in government funds for cargo ship M\/V Luta\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
Bellas also placed under advisement Hocog\u2019s motion to dismiss Del Rosario\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
In denying Del Rosario\u2019s motion to disqualify, Bellas said Del Rosario did present legitimate concerns that the OAG should be disqualified but Hocog\u2019s and Larson\u2019s arguments are more persuasive and supported by law.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this time, and [based] on the facts that are currently available to the court, the OAG is not disqualified,\u201d said Bellas in his order. Bellas\u2019 order was issued last month but was obtained by Saipan Tribune only yesterday.<\/p>\n
Bellas said he reserves the right to review the matter at a later point in the proceedings should facts arise suggesting that his decision should be reconsidered.<\/p>\n
Bellas said the court has no reason to believe otherwise that the OAG, while representing Hocog and Larson, has and will continue to keep individual client confidences, as well as have screening procedures in place to ensure that defendants are ethically represented in compliance with the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct.<\/p>\n
DelRosario, through counsel Jennifer Dockter, moved to disqualify the OAG, claiming that the merits of the case give rise to inherent conflict of interest, making disqualification appropriate.<\/p>\n
Dockter also argued that the OAG needs to be disqualified in order to ensure the fairness of the proceeding.<\/p>\n
Assistant attorney general Christopher Timmons represents Hocog in his personal capacity. Assistant attorney general James Zarones serves as counsel for Hocog and Larson in their official capacity.<\/p>\n
Timmons and Zarones argued that Commonwealth law explicitly mandates the attorney general to provide Hocog and Larson with representation and that the common law explicitly recognizes that an Attorney General\u2019s Office has a special status for conflicts purposes.<\/p>\n
In denying the motion, Bellas said he finds DelRosario\u2019s \u201cfairness of the proceedings\u201d argument unpersuasive, in part because it is speculative at this stage.<\/p>\n
Last May, DelRosario filed the taxpayer\u2019s lawsuit against Hocog and Larson over the alleged adoption of a Rota resolution without public notice that purportedly authorized payment of $400,000 to Luta Mermaid LLC, a private company owned by Hocog\u2019s relatives. <\/p>\n
DelRosario is suing Hocog and Larson for breach of fiduciary duties, and expenditure of public funds for an improper purpose. In addition, Hocog is being sued for violation of the Open Government Act.<\/p>\n
DelRosario then moved to disqualify the OAG from serving as counsel for Hocog and Larson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court associate judge pro tempore Timothy H. Bellas has denied former Department of Public…<\/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":[2626,14532,259,86],"class_list":["post-241711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-attorney-general","tag-del-rosario","tag-lawsuit","tag-oag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241711","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=241711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}