HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A man failed to appear in court following his partially successful appeal of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance fraud convictions.
On Tuesday morning, Superior Court of Guam Judge Vernon Perez called a case for George Chambers Jr., who was sentenced to 30 days in prison in connection to a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance fraud.
Chambers was found guilty at trial of tampering with public records and unsworn falsification as misdemeanors. However, after appealing the convictions in the Supreme Court of Guam, the higher court ruled Chambers’ unsworn falsification charge would be reversed while the tampering conviction was upheld.
The Tuesday hearing was the first time Chambers was set to appear since the Supreme Court’s decision, but as the case was called, Chambers was not in attendance.
Regardless of Chambers’ no-show, Perez stated on the record a violation was filed for Chambers in 2022 and there was a warrant for his arrest issued in another case. Additionally, Perez confirmed with probation officers and Chambers’ attorney that Chambers has not checked in with either.
Considering Chambers’ needs to be resentenced following the Supreme Court’s ruling, Perez decided to issue a warrant for Chambers’ arrest.
“He’s not checking in and there’s also a warrant for him in another case. … We’ll go ahead and issue a warrant at this time,” Perez said.
2022 case
Following Chambers being found guilty at trial, he was charged in May 2022 with forgery as a second-degree felony.
According to court documents, Chambers returned to a store in Harmon where he had allegedly cashed a bad check several days prior.
The store employee told the suspect that he could no longer cash checks there, causing him to become irate and punch the counter, while refusing to pay back the money, documents state.
The check was written for $687.74 under the account of Catholic Social Services and made payable to Fire Comm, documents state.
Fire Comm officials allegedly told police the check was reported stolen during an office burglary. The check also had the suspect’s name handwritten on top of the account holder’s name.
Chambers allegedly admitted to officers with the Guam Police Department that an unknown man handed him the check to cash, adding that he signed the stolen check.
George Chambers Jr.
