The CNMI government indicated that it is willing to give back any money that may have come from the alleged fraudulent sale of \u201cFreedom Tower\u201d commemorative coins.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for the money, we\u2019ll return it if necessary,\u201d Gov. Juan N. Babauta told reporters yesterday. <\/p>\n
The Governor\u2019s Office has received some $160,000 in royalty fee from the coin maker, Softsky, following its manufacture and sale of commemorative coins bearing the emblem of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.<\/p>\n
Softsky was dragged into a legal tussle after a judge in New York City reportedly found that National Collector\u2019s Mint Inc., which markets Softsky\u2019s coins, engaged in civil fraud, false advertising and deceptive business practices when it marketed its \u201c2004 Freedom Tower Silver Dollar\u201d for $19.95 in television and print ads. <\/p>\n
The seller reportedly claimed that the coins were made of nearly pure silver recovered from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n
The judge had stopped National Collector\u2019s Mint Inc. from selling the coin while the charges it faces, filed by the New York attorney general, are now being deliberated in court. <\/p>\n
Attorney general Pamela Brown earlier said that the CNMI was in the process of terminating the contract with Softsky. \u201cIt\u2019s the way to go,\u201d she had said.<\/p>\n
She said that money collected from such sale may likely be donated to WTC victims\u2019 funds, noting that it is unacceptable to profit from the tragedy.<\/p>\n
Babauta said that Softsky recently wrote him wondering about the CNMI\u2019s contract suspension. He said Softky maintains that there is no reason why the CNMI should seek to terminate the agreement at all.<\/p>\n
Babauta, in a Nov. 12 letter to Softsky president Joseph Hartman, said that the company is \u201cnot authorized to develop, mint, or market any coins utilizing the authorization of the CNMI.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not happy taking these actions but the events surrounding this agreement warrants this suspension.\u201d <\/p>\n
SoftSky had issued two $25,000 worth of checks to the CNMI from the proceeds of the sale of minted CNMI coins last summer. Last October, the company sent in additional $110,000 to the CNMI as royalty fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CNMI government indicated that it is willing to give back any money that may have come from the alleged fraudulent sale of \u201cFreedom Tower\u201d commemorative coins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86326","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}