James Robert Kingman
ASSISTANT Attorney General James Robert Kingman in a social media post on Wednesday urged the Superior Court to schedule a trial date in the case against former Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, who is accused of misconduct in public office relating to first-class travel.
“It has been one full year since the corruption trial that I was brought out here to prosecute was set to begin and the judge had not ruled on a single pending pretrial motion nor issued a scheduling order,” Kingman stated in his post.
“Where are the feds? Where is the oversight? Where are the ethics committees? Where is the bar? What are we even doing out here?” he asked.
Asked about his social media post, Kingman said he was marking the one-year anniversary of not having a scheduling order in the case.
Last year, because of a few unresolved pretrial issues before Judge Pro Tem Arthur Barcinas, the prosecution and defense agreed that moving the June 5, 2023 jury trial was the “best way” to move forward.
After a discussion during a pretrial hearing at that time, and with the consent of the parties, Judge Barcinas vacated the jury trial set for June 5, 2023 but maintained the date for a conference hearing.
Disqualification
In related news, one of Torres’ attorneys, Anthony Aguon, filed recently a notice of the following supplemental authority: People of Guam v. Sablan, Crim. No. CF0447-23 (Guam Super. Ct. April 25, 2024) (Decision and Order on the Motion to Disqualify the Office of the Attorney General).
According to Aguon, the issued decision further supports the disqualification of the CNMI Office of the Attorney General from prosecuting the Torres case.
In the Guam case, Superior Court of Guam Judge Alberto Tolentino disqualified the Guam Office of the Attorney General from prosecuting five Guam Regional Transit Authority officials accused of corruption because of conflict of interest.
The judge found that an assistant attorney general had provided legal services to GRTA and there was an attorney-client relationship.
“The conflict of interest has not been mitigated by the imposition of an effective conflict wall,” Judge Tolentino added.
The original case against former Governor Torres was filed by the Office of the Attorney General on April 8, 2022 (CR 22-0050). Torres was charged with 12 counts of misconduct in public office and one count of theft relating to the issuance of airline tickets for business class, first class, or other premium class travel for himself and/or Diann T. Torres, his wife. The case also alleged one count of contempt for failure to appear in compliance with a legislative subpoena.
Torres has denied the charges.
On Aug. 23, 2022, Judge Pro Tem Alberto Tolentino dismissed without prejudice the contempt charge against Torres. Without prejudice means that the charge can be refiled.
The judge said evidence indicated that the prosecutor, J. Robert Glass Jr., was exposed to “privileged information regarding non-appearance to a legislative subpoena as charged in Count XIV — Contempt.”
On Oct. 26, 2023, Kingman refiled a separate charge of contempt and misconduct in public office against the former governor (CR 23-0127).
On Dec. 19, 2023, Judge Barcinas directed the prosecution to refile the penal summons against the former governor.
