By Gina Tabonares
Variety News Staff

SUPERIOR Court Judge Michael Bordallo yesterday ordered counsels for former Guam Superior Court administrator Anthony Sanchez and California lawyer Howard Hills to return in two weeks for a new criminal trial setting.
Bordallo decided to vacate earlier scheduled trial dates after Hills changed his decision to waive a speedy trial. He earlier asserted a speedy trial while Sanchez waived a speedy trial during their arraignment for the superceding indictment filed on March 29.
The court instructed Sanchez’s lawyer, Mike Phillips, and Hills’ attorney, Tony Perez, to file a stipulation to sever earlier agreed trial dates in October.
All parties were ordered to return on May 30 at 9 a.m. for individual trial setting, Deputy Attorney General Lewis Littlepage said.
Based on the superceding indictment filed by the Office of the Attorney General, Sanchez was charged separately from Hills. The two co-defendants share the same amount of liability on the 14 charges filed through a superceding indictment.
They were charged with unlawful influence as a third-degree felony, conspiracy for unlawful influence as a third-degree felony, theft of property held in trust as a second-degree felony, official misconduct as a misdemeanor, theft by deception as a second-degree felony, conspiracy for theft by deception as a second-degree felony, theft by deception as a second-degree felony, conspiracy for theft by deception as a second-degree felony, misapplication of entrusted funds as a misdemeanor, and conspiracy for misapplication of entrusted funds as a third-degree felony.
The felony charges against Sanchez and Hills were in connection with the local court’s almost $500,000 in payments to disgraced Washington, D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
According to indictment documents, Sanchez and Hills conspired to transfer 36 payments in $9,000 checks from the Judicial Branch of the Government of Guam.
To pay the lobbyist, the local court funneled the payment of the checks to the account of Hills, who is based in Laguna Beach, California.
The complaint stated that Sanchez and Hills violated the procurement and supply management policy, and the procedures of the judicial branch of GovGuam.
Sanchez reportedly retained Abramoff in 2002 to lobby against a bill proposing to put the Superior Court under the authority of the Guam Supreme Court.