Settlement negotiations between the government and the Malite estate have begun in efforts to end the controversial case that involves a dispute over the release of some $3.45 million in land compensation to the Malite estate\u2019s heirs.<\/p>\n
Attorneys representing the parties in the case\u2014Malite estate administrator Jesus Tudela; the Attorney General\u2019s Office; the Marianas Public Lands Authority, its board members, and commissioner Edward DeLeon Guerrero\u2014convened yesterday at the Superior Court before Judge Juan T. Lizama.<\/p>\n
Malite estate attorney Antonio Atalig said the government initiated the settlement process by making an offer. He refused to disclose the amount being offered by the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [AGO attorneys] are the ones who offered the settlement,\u201d Atalig said. \u201cWe\u2019re making progress, but I prefer not to discuss any details.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atalig did not comment when asked if the settlement offer was about $1-2 million. He did not reveal if he made a counter-offer and its amount, if any. \u201cBoth sides are trying to work it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Pamela Brown filed the Malite lawsuit sometime in December 2004 to prevent the drawdown of some $3.45 million in land compensation being claimed by the estate from the government\u2019s land compensation fund. The complaint named the estate\u2019s administrator, the MPLA, its board members and commissioner as defendants.<\/p>\n
The MPLA board had approved the payment of $3.45 million to the Malite estate. Brown had claimed that there were circumstances surrounding the transaction that create a \u201cstrong appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s attorneys questioned the amount of $3.45 million, approximately 1,000 times than the compensation determined in a 1978 Trust Territory court order, which they claimed to be a final judgment in which no appeal was taken.<\/p>\n
The Trust Territory court had set the compensation amount at $3,682, for the condemnation of a parcel of land that now forms part of the Marianas High School. The Commonwealth government got the title to the land as a result of the condemnation. The Malite heirs, however, said they did not get a cent from the government.<\/p>\n
The AGO is now saying that, even if the Trust Territory court judgment was not satisfied, the amount of $3.45 million does not conform to valuation provisions of the law, adding that valuation of condemned land should be determined at the time of the taking of the property by the CNMI government.<\/p>\n
The AGO had contended that conflicts of interests taint the MPLA board\u2019s approval of the $3.45 million claim, saying that lawyer Atalig is brother to MPLA board member Benita Atalig-Manglona. Atalig\u2019s brother, the late ex-Supreme Court Justice Pedro Atalig, was a former MPLA board member. Atalig\u2019s office manager, Juan Demapan, is brother of MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro.<\/p>\n
The estate and the MPLA defendants had questioned Brown\u2019s legitimacy as attorney general and her authority to initiate the court action.<\/p>\n
After failing to have the lawsuit dismissed, the estate elevated the matter before the Supreme Court and asked the appellate court to enforce the decision of the MPLA to pay some $3.45 million to the estate. The petition, which seeks the reversal of the Superior Court ruling that denied dismissal of the suit, remains pending for determination before the High Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Settlement negotiations between the government and the Malite estate have begun in efforts to end the controversial case that involves a dispute over the release of some $3.45 million in land compensation to the Malite estate\u2019s heirs.<\/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-91896","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\/91896","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=91896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}