By Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa
Variety News Staff

THE former supervisor of the CNMI Treasury Office and two cohorts who were arrested for engaging in a scheme to defraud the government by means of using and submitting false information to collect payments have been charged in court.
Francisco C. Calvo, the former Treasury supervisor, Edward Borja Ada, owner of Pacific Lawn Care Services., and Maria Babauta Masga, former supervisor of the accounts payable section of the Department of Finance, were charged yesterday with 55 counts of conspiracy to commit theft by deception, theft by deception, misconduct in public office and bribery.
Acting Chief Prosecutor Mike Nisperos, in a 23-page information filed in court, stated that the three defendants on March 3, 2006, did unlawfully agree with each other to commit the offense of theft by deception by purposely obtaining the property of the CNMI government by deception by manipulating the Department of Finance computers to generate payments to defendant’s business, Pacific Lawn Care Services, using fraudulent invoices and receipt numbers and cashing the fraudulent checks.
The information added that Calvo and Masga as public officials committed the illegal act of theft by deception under the color of office in violation of the law.
Ada “did unlawfully and voluntarily give U.S. currency in wrongful and corrupt payment for an official act done by giving it to Calvo and Masga so as to influence them to manipulate the Department of Finance computers to generate payments to defendant’s business, Pacific Lawn Care Services, using fraudulent invoices and receipt numbers and cashing fraudulent checks in violation of the law.”
The three defendants “committed theft by deception by purposely obtaining property of the CNMI government by deception, money from checks and invoices from (government) accounts from March 3 to June 22, 2006.”
The defendants were arrested on March 9, 2007 after a complaint of theft of over $30,000 in government funds was reported to the Office of the Public Auditor.
According to an affidavit submitted to the court, Masga has admitted that she and Ada made fake invoices using Pacific Lawn Care Services and were getting paid by the government and splitting the payments between them.
Masga received approximately $10,000 from these transactions, the affidavit stated.
It added that Masga, Ada and Calvo used and input false information into the JD Edwards computer system at the Department of Finance to collect payments and split the proceeds between them.
As a result of the scheme, the affidavit stated, some $30,825 was fraudulently taken from numerous local government accounts and a federal account.