STANLEY T. Torres, the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, yesterday urged the administration to file criminal charges against the “crooks who fraudulently obtained the people’s money from Bank of Saipan.”
In a privilege speech during yesterday’s House session, Torres, R-Saipan, lashed at former House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, former Guam Gov. Paul M. Calvo, Edward M. Calvo, Thomas M. Calvo, attorney David Lujan, Saipan garment magnates Willie and Jerry Tan and “other greedy shareholders and directors” of the bank.
“I am (urging) the governor…the attorney general, the Office of the Public Auditor and all the CNMI government entities to file criminal charges against all the names I have mentioned. Their properties and businesses should be seized and sold to recover the $3.5 million they received from the bank including the monies of their co-conspirators. They should also be penalized,” Torres said during the session.
This is the “best way” to normalize the bank’s operations and bring back the confidence of the CNMI people in the bank.
Torres also defended Gov. Juan N. Babauta who was blamed by Fitial for the “bank run” that followed after the governor disclosed the bank’s financial condition to the public.
“Fitial’s statement and declaration against the governor are a sack of lies,” he said.
He claimed that Fitial knew everything about the bank’s ailing condition.
Fitial, according to Torres, was the bank chairman of the board before he became speaker of the 12th Legislature. He said Fitial remained a member of the board of directors and chairman of the bank’s loan committee after his term in the previous Legislature.
The former speaker, Torres said, is among the bank’s few major shareholders who allegedly sold their shares to “the three BMW crooks”—businessmen Dusean Berdich, Bert Montgomery and Michael Wilson.
Based on the bank records obtained by Torres, Paul and Thomas Calvo each has 28,644 shares, Edward M. Calvo has 28,643 shares, Lujan, the trustee of Junior Larry Hillblom, has 113,396 shares, the Tans have 85,000 shares, and Fitial, 1,000 shares.
Torres claimed that the bank’s “little shareholders” were ignorant of the decision of the major shareholders to sell the bank.
This was an “orchestrated sale,” he said. “The three electronic robbers…from the U.S. mainland have been in contact with the major selling shareholder-directors—the Calvo brothers, Lujan, the Tan brothers and Fitial.”
He claimed that in the early part of 2001, or before the gubernatorial election, Berdich, Montgomery and Wilson met with the major shareholders and directors of the bank in Las Vegas and “deal their games of chance and came back to Saipan to redeem their winnings at Bank of Saipan which turns out to be a scam and a conspiracy….”
“I believe that this is one of the platforms of…Fitial (for the) investors to come in to the CNMI as soon as he becomes governor-elect. These three crooks are his investors. Can you imagine if Ben became our governor? He will have all the government monies in Bank of Saipan, believe it or not,” Torres said.
Torres said he also learned that the bank’s attorney, Edward A. Calvo, is with the Calvo & Clark law firm. Thus, he said, it would be impossible for the firm to prosecute Edward M. Calvo who is the father of the bank’s attorney.
“This is a direct conflict of interest and a joke to let his own son to continue as the attorney of the bank when the firm is also a participant in the scandal,” Torres said.
Torres also informed the members of the House that Paul M. Calvo and Lujan paid a visit to Babauta a few days after the news of the indictment of Montgomery. He said Calvo and Lujan “nervously” assured Babauta and him that the bank “is under control and in a normal operation and that they are personally guaranteeing the bank with their own money.”
But Torres said Calvo and Lujan only offered $1.2 million and did not tell the governor that “they have already amassed $3.5 million from the sale of their shares.”
