Former Rep. William S. Torres and Jesusa B. Dris separately filed their requests.
Torres asked the court to deny the ex-parte motion, or in the alternative, reconsider its order granting Fund’s ex-parte motion, or grant Torres an additional 30 days to file his response to the petition.
Dris told the court that she was off-island for emergency medical attention and had returned to Saipan on May 21, 2011.
Dris submitted copies of airline tickets and related medical documents as evidence in support of her request to the court “to give due consideration to her situation and grant me time extension.”
In granting the Fund’s ex-parte motion, Judge David A. Wiseman directed the two former SHEFA consultants to answer by May 24, Tuesday.
Since he is appearing for himself, Torres told the court “he will need additional time to submit a meaningful response to the petition.”
He added: “Ex-parte motions are highly prejudicial to the opposing side and do not give the opposing side any time to respond. These motions are reserved for exigent circumstances, real emergencies.”
“There is no emergency in this case,” Torres noted.
He said the Fund’s counsel gave the court a “misleading” statement.
“Plaintiff has had over two years to prepare its case, but did nothing until recently to address Torres’ appeal,” he argued.
Torres said he is asking the court to “be afforded the opportunity to participate in this proceeding in a meaningful matter, and for this court to provide anything less would be a violation of [my] due process rights.”
The Fund estimates that the overpayments amounted to almost $200,000 of the estimated total amount of $500,000 it seeks to recover for the overpayment of benefits to Dris and Torres alone, the petition stated.
Torres and Dris have objected to the Fund’s subpoena to participate in the investigation.
