By Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa
Variety News Staff

THE United Micronesia Development Association Inc., and UMDA Laolao LLC, which sued its former director and various shareholders for fraud, breach of fiduciary and statutory obligations, misappropriation of funds and negligence, have filed an amended complaint and added an accounting firm and its officials as defendants.
UMDA and UMDA Laolao LLC, through attorney Michael W. Dotts, named as additional defendants Deloitte & Touche LLC, Deloitte & Touche LLP, Michael S. Johnson, Joseph Arnett, Sasquatch II, Bigelow Asset Management LLC, Paul Dingee and Does 1 to 50 and Roes 1 to 50.
The amended complaint stated that the Deloitte defendants have served as UMDA’s consultants, tax advisors and auditors for more than 10 years.
According to the complaint, the defendants recommended that UMDA engage in tax shelters and other questionable transactions “promoted by the Pfaff defendants so as to gain favor with the Pfaff defendants and their cohorts.”
The Deloitte defendants “violated their duties to UMDA and its board by failing to report the conduct of the Pfaff defendants and other insiders of the UMDA board of directors.”
The complaint stated that Robert Pfaff and the other defendants “insinuated themselves into UMDA and Laolao LLC and then misused their positions of trust, power and authority to obtain undisclosed and improperly disclosed ‘side fees’ and other improper consideration at UMDA’s expense and misused UMDA to carry out their secret and illicit agenda and to suit their own improper purposes.”
UMDA earlier sued several individuals and companies, including Robert Pfaff, Raymond D. McCall and John Larson.
Pfaff, Larson, McCall are lawyers and have been indicted by the federal court in New York for tax evasion through the knowing sale of false tax shelters, for conspiring with each other to sell false tax shelters, and for personal tax evasion.
UMDA’s former senior executive officer, Michael Grandinetti, has already pleaded guilty to giving false statements in connection to receiving millions of dollars in fees generated from certain UMDA tax shelter transactions.
UMDA is a Saipan-based regional investment firm.