The office of the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission is shown Jan. 23, 2023. The commission continues to weigh actions related to a years-old estate case.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The white-collar crimes division of the Office of the Attorney General now has documents related to an estate litigation, one of the land-related cases that were settled in 2020, much to the dismay of the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission.
“After the last special meeting, the matter was forwarded up to Chief Deputy Attorney General Joseph Guthrie, who asked that all the documents be sent over to our white-collar division for review. That was just done recently,” Assistant Attorney General Sandra Miller told GALC commissioners during a meeting April 12.
The settlement resulted in the dismissal of several land- or lease-related government lawsuits that go back more than a decade, including a 2009 suit involving administrators of the estate of Jose Martinez Torres and, initially, Kil Koo Yoon, who had purchased lots from the estate for about $21 million.
GALC awarded the lots to the estate with the condition that it bring its ancestral claim to a court for review and a final decision, the government stated in its lawsuit. The government alleged the estate’s attorneys drafted a deed without that condition.
Commissioners were not informed of the settlement, and only caught wind of it last year, when attorney William Bischoff, who filed the 2009 suit when he worked under the OAG, inquired about the case’s status. Bischoff later called the commission’s attention to the case having been dismissed two years prior.
In the aftermath, the commission wanted to know why it was not consulted about the settlement and has even discussed the possibility of obtaining counsel independent from the OAG.
‘Potential conflict’
Miller said last week that the case is now outside the scope of her role at the commission.
“In the civil solicitors side, the case says, all five of them plus two probates, so seven cases, were settled and dismissed by the court. And we’re going on three years since then. The issue is also a potential conflict of interest, because the commission has questions of the civil division as to how did this occur, why wasn’t the commission consulted. … And essentially, the commission is asking the civil division questions about what it did,” Miller said.
She added that finding independent counsel for GALC is something to discuss with the AG and other divisions. But for the civil division and for her role as GALC counsel, there aren’t many comments that can be made, particularly since the attorneys who were involved in the case are no longer with the OAG, Miller said.
Former Deputy AG James Canto and former GALC counsel Nicolas Toft have not been with the OAG for some time. It was Canto who explained why GALC was not consulted, stating that the commission was not a party to the case.
“It’s up to you if you want to keep it on your agenda. I’m just saying I can no longer respond to this, because it’s in a different division of (the OAG) now,” Miller said. “But it has been forwarded, it’s there. We did our part, and the other half of the office has everything it needs.”
There is some concern over how much time is left to take action on the settlement before the statute of limitations runs its course.
Miller said, if the settlement agreement was in July 2020, then the deadline would be July 2023. But she added that the statute also states that the clock begins to count down from the time the aggrieved party learns of the facts that give rise to its complaint.
Millers said that from what she could tell, the commission didn’t learn of the facts until late 2022.
“If that’s correct, and I mentioned this, too, to the other division, that they should double-check the statute of limitations, that would bring you to 2025,” Miller said.
GALC Executive Director John Burch said that would provide an opportunity, if the OAG agrees to provide independent counsel, to proceed with an action, should there be a conflict with the OAG handling the case.
Miller said she didn’t know how obtaining independent counsel would work out, but she posited that the OAG would have to be involved in the procurement of that counsel, and funding would be another issue.
