Special Prosecutor Michael Copeland said he firmly believe that they will be able to bring Taunton back to Palau to be tried before a Palauan court for the crimes that he allegedly committed.
Copeland in an email yesterday said that there were two occasions within the past year-and-a half that they were believed they were close to capturing him.Taunton and several individuals were charged for causing the bank’s failure.Former Independent Counsel Lewis Harley handled the investigation and prosecution of the matter but dismissed the charges for other defendants except Taunton.Copeland took over the PSB cases in January.He said: “After the recent holding in the January trial of one of the PSB insiders, we are dismissing some of the cases filed by Independent Counsel Harley and refiling some of the others to better fit our legal theory of the case.”In connection to this, the Trial Court of the Supreme Court dismissed the charges against Tadao Ngotel, Elubuchel Sadang, Leo BenTeriong, Wilbert Kamerang, Evence Imetengel, Naomi Ueki and Hideo Termeteet.The charges against Ngotel was dismissed without prejudice on February 16 while the charges against Sadang, Teriong, Kamerang, Imetengel, Ueki and Termeteet were dismissed without prejudice.Copeland added that they are anticipating filing new charges against some individuals based on information they have received from other sources working on the PSB matter.He said they also have ongoing civil lawsuits against several individuals and are about to proceed into collections on a $22 million judgment that was recently obtained against Taunton.“We are working with the PSB receiver’s office who continue to do an excellent job bringing in money for the depositors,”he said.“They have collected over $1.7 millionon behalf of the depositors and should collect much more in the coming year when assets are sold,”he added.Copeland said there will be more civil and criminal cases filed in connection with the failure of PSB.
