ATTORNEY Aaron Halegua has asked the federal court to impose a $10,000 daily sanction on Imperial Pacific International LLC chair Cui Li Jie.
Halegua said Cui Li Jie has not complied with a court order directing her to file a sworn statement that addresses all aspects of her creation and use of Electronically Stored Information or ESI data.
“Court intervention and contempt sanctions are once again needed to compel her compliance,” Halegua said in a status report filed in court Friday,
“Once again,” he added, “plaintiffs are being forced to chase after Ms. Cui to have her comply with the orders of this court. Moreover, it is clear that Ms. Cui still does not take the court’s preservation order seriously. Ms. Cui’s allegation that she coincidentally lost the data on her phone and lost her SIM card just before they were to be preserved truly strains credulity. However, even based on the sworn testimony in the SIM declarations, Ms. Cui still entrusted a third-party to perform operations on her phone before turning it over to [her attorney] Juan Lizama; she left the phone and SIM card out of her sight; and she did not even check to see if all SIM cards were returned to her.”
An order by the court without the threat of contempt or a severe sanction has once again proven insufficient to compel Cui Li Jie’s compliance, Halegua said.
He requested the court to issue an order to show cause why Cui Li Jie should not be held in contempt for failing to provide the sworn affidavit; why a daily sanction of $10,000 should not accrue until she provides the affidavit; and why the court should not award the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees.
Halegua asked the court to require the IPI chair to respond by June 1 to the show cause order. The lawyer also requested for hearing.
The IPI chair is a third-party witness in the lawsuit of seven construction workers from China who sued IPI and its former contractor and subcontractor, MCC International Saipan Ltd., and Gold Mantis Construction Decoration (CNMI), over forced labor and human trafficking allegations.
Recently, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona entered a $5.91 million default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs against IPI.
MCC International and Gold Mantis, for their part, have already settled with the plaintiffs.
Aaron Halegua
