ATTORNEY Joaquin Torres said the court should not sanction him for including former Rep. Tina Sablan on the defense witness list in the trial of Shayne B. Villanueva, who was charged with contempt of the Legislature.
Villanueva’s bench trial started on Monday, Jan. 27. He is represented by attorneys Joaquin Torres, Victorino Torres and Keith Chambers.
Recently, Superior Court Judge Kenneth L. Govendo granted Sablan’s motion to quash the subpoena requiring her to testify in Villanueva’s trial.
In his two-page order Judge Govendo also ordered attorney Joaquin Torres to show cause as to why “he should not be sanctioned for wasting court resources and filing a frivolous, unduly burdensome subpoena on a third party.”
In his reply to the order, Joaquin Torres said he subpoenaed a witness on the Commonwealth’s witness list.
“The Commonwealth presumably placed Ms. Sablan on the witness list because it believed she had relevant testimony to this matter, and the Commonwealth never struck Ms. Sablan’s name from their witness list and still reserves the right to call her in [at] trial,” Joaquin Torres said.
He said, “The prosecution did not object to the defense calling the Commonwealth’s witnesses and Ms. Sablan could have provided testimonial evidence that is relevant and material to Mr. Villanueva’s defense.”
Therefore, he added, he should not be sanctioned for “wasting court resources and filing a frivolous, unduly burdensome subpoena on a third party.”
“The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution gives criminal defendants the right to call witnesses and compel their attendance at trial,” Joaquin Torres said.
Moreover, he said, criminal defendants “are permitted to subpoena individuals who have testimony that is relevant and material to the issue being litigated.”
He reiterated that it was the Commonwealth, represented by the Office of the Attorney General, that “provided Ms. Sablan’s name as a witness on the Commonwealth’s List.”
The fact that the Commonwealth reserved “the right to amend this witness list to add any and all persons not presently known who possess relevant knowledge” suggests that the 22 people on the Commonwealth’s List were individuals who possessed “relevant knowledge,” the lawyer said.
“Although the Commonwealth has only subpoenaed a few individuals on the Commonwealth’s List, the fact that the Commonwealth has not moved to amend the Commonwealth’s List to strike certain names means that (1) the Commonwealth still reserves the right to call any or all of the [22 individuals, including Ms. Sablan] as witnesses in its case-in-chief, and (2) the Commonwealth maintains this belief that each of the…potential witnesses has something to offer the Court in its case-in-chief,” Joaquin Torres said.
“It is also possible that Ms. Sablan is still on island, because she was observed still being in Saipan on January 16th and 17th, well after January 11, 2025, the day that she told the Court she would leave the island,” he added.
Variety was unable to get a comment from Sablan.
Background
Villanueva is the owner of Roil Soil Marketing, which the administration of then-Gov. Ralph DLG Torres contracted to help implement BOOST in 2022.
BOOST stands for “Building Optimism, Opportunities and Stability Together,” a $17 million federally funded program.
On March 5, 2024, Villanueva appeared before the House Special Committee on Federal Assistance & Disaster-Related Funding and invoked his Fifth Amendment right when asked questions about BOOST.
Citing 1 CMC 1306, the committee found him in contempt of the Legislature.
Previous statements
“One of the issues relevant to Mr. Villanueva’s pleading of the Fifth is the Legislators’ position on the BOOST program, those involved in it, and the actions taken by those Legislators,” Joaquin Torres said.
He said Sablan, as member of the 22nd Legislature and of the Joint House Ways and Means and Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee, previously stated the following: 1)there must be consequences for [the] BOOST fiasco”; 2) “legislative investigation into the BOOST program is needed, and should continue in the 23rd Legislature”; 3)“referrals should be made to the attorney general, the public auditor, and federal authorities for further investigation and prosecution”; 4) “the next Legislature should take up measures to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the expenditures of public funds. And the next administration should support these measures.”
“Respectfully,” Joaquin Torres said, “Mr. Villanueva should have had the right to ask Ms. Sablan about these statements to support Mr. Villanueva’s defense of his ability to plead the Fifth in the manner in which he did.”
Furthermore, “if Ms. Sablan truly has nothing to offer the Court in terms of her testimony in this matter, then it is the Commonwealth, not [Joaquin] Torres, that needs to explain why the Commonwealth put Ms. Sablan on the Commonwealth’s List and [has] not moved to amend the list prior to the trial date,” the lawyer added.
Villanueva’s trial will resume today, Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 10 a.m.
On Monday Assistant Attorney General James Robert Kingman testified that Villanueva knew that Kingman was conducting BOOST investigations.
Kingman was the prosecutor in the case but was disqualified by Judge Govendo, who granted the defense’s cross-motion to recuse the assistant AG, stating, “Kingman should not remain the prosecutor for this matter to ensure procedural integrity and due process for all parties throughout the court.”
Chief Solicitor J. Robert Glass Jr., who is now prosecuting the case, said the Legislature has a duty to conduct oversight hearings.
He said there are “481 million reasons” for Villanueva to be found guilty by the court, adding that the four questions asked by the House committee were not self-incriminating.
For the defense, attorney Joaquin Torres stated that the government must prove that 1) the subpoena was signed, 2) that the subpoena was properly served, 3) the questions posed to Villanueva were relevant to a legitimate legislative purpose, and 4) Villanueva actually denied those questions.
He said the defense would also ask the House committee “whether they could actually legislate those ARPA funds or not.”
“We will submit in the end that if you cannot legislate the funds, you cannot investigate the funds,” the defense lawyer said.
House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, Rep. BJ Attao, and the Legislative Bureau’s Sergeant-at-Arms Peter Towai also testified on the first day of trial.
