Mafnas said the request “encompasses a wide range of documents on grants or loans received by DPS in 2010 and earlier.”
“The amount of information requested is voluminous and significant. However, DPS will continue to gather all the information requested regardless of the time, resources and efforts required,” said Mafnas in an email to Variety.
“As DPS commissioner, I have never received any request from USOSC to furnish information pertaining to Deputy Commissioner Ambrosio T. Ogumoro,” Mafnas added.
On her “Unheard No More!” blogsite, former Rota teacher and human rights advocate Wendy Doromal expressed her dismay with the special counsel for asking information from DPS when the object of the complaint is a ranking official of the department.
“Why would the OSC ask the very office being investigated to provide them with information? Couldn’t this information be gathered from another federal agency, say the U.S. Department of Justice, that provided funding for the COPS grant? The letter from the OSC did note that federal funding to DPS was indicated in a news article I referred to them. The article clearly stated that the U.S. Department of Justice ‘Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), informed the CNMI government that it has been awarded a grant of $519,048. The grant award will fund the hiring of nine DPS police officers for a three-year period.’ I am sure that the USDOJ could verify this information as easily as anyone from DPS.”
Like Attorney General Edward T. Bucking, DPS Deputy Commissioner Ambrosio Ogumoro “used his position and authority of his office to support a partisan political candidate during the last [congressional delegate] election,” Doromal said.
She said she received a letter stating that “the Office of the Special Counsel was unable to determine if Ogumoro was covered by the Hatch Act and the office decided to ‘close this matter without further action.’ ”
In giving his directive to DPS personnel, Mafnas said: “Today, late this afternoon, I located the letter dated Feb. 4, 2011 from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel addressed to former Commissioner Sandy Tudela to provide, in my opinion, a substantial and voluminous amount of information — 2010 and earlier federal grant documents.”
Mafnas said the letter was stamped received by DPS on Feb. 24, 2011 and the deadline to furnish the information was Feb. 21, 2011.
“There were written instructions from former Commissioner Tudela directed at several DPS personnel to comply with the request. I have no direct knowledge of what the former commissioner did after he issued the instructions. The grant year in question was 2010 and earlier. I have issued instructions for DPS personnel to begin gathering the information requested,” Mafnas said.
