Buckingham sues Public Auditor Pai

Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham has filed a lawsuit against Public Auditor Michael Pai over his hiring of two lawyers. Buckingham said such actions “threaten an imminent waste of public funds.”

Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson is also named as Buckingham’s co-plaintiff in the lawsuit. Assistant attorney general W. Allen Hazlip filed the complaint in the Superior Court on Tuesday.

Buckingham and Larson asked the court to issue judgment declaring the Office of Public Auditor’s contracts for the legal services of attorneys Brian McMahon and Joseph Przyuski as invalid and unenforceable.

With respect to McMahon’s contract, Hazlip said OPA’s attempted renewals failed to comply with the requirements of the CNMI Procurement Regulations.

On Przyuski’s contract, Hazlip said the contract document is facially invalid and was not executed or processed in compliance with the mandatory standards of the CNMI Excepted Service Personnel Regulations.

Hazlip said Pai signed on Dec. 2, 2008 a sole source independent contract agreement with CNMI attorney McMahon for part-time legal services to be provided to OPA for a period of one year.

He said the contract provides for payment based on attorney billings at $125 per hour for legal services, not to exceed $40,000 in total, for a term commencing Dec. 2, 2008 and terminating Nov. 30, 2009.

Pai allegedly signed on Nov. 12, 2010 a change order no. 2 purporting to extend OPA’s sole source contract with McMahon for one year.

Buckingham signed the change order no. 2 on Jan. 7, 2011 and forwarded the procurement documents to the governor’s office for final review.

Hazlip said subsequent to Buckingham’s approval of the change order for OPA’s contract with McMahon, the Office of the Attorney General learned that OPA previously had executed an employment contract in November 2010 to hire Przyuski as part-time legal counsel for OPA.

Hazlip said the Przyuski contract was never submitted to the OAG for review and instead another OPA attorney, Nancy Gottfried, approved the contract on Nov. 15, 2010.

The contract is for a period of employment commencing Nov. 22, 2010 and continuing until Nov. 21, 2011.

Hazlip said OPA did not route the contract for approval by the Procurement director, AG, or governor.

“Since September 2010, Josepy Przyuski has not been present in the CNMI and, since this time, has not been present on the island of Saipan,” the lawyer said.

It was Pai who investigated the complaints lodged against Buckingham and the OAG for hosting a campaign gathering for then delegate candidate Joseph N. Camacho of the ruling Covenant Party.

With governor Benigno Fitial’s blessing, Buckingham hired a private counsel to represent him in his official and personal capacity in connection with OPA’s notice of alleged criminal and ethical violations investigation.

Pai or OPA has neither released the report to the public or commented on any ethics investigation, citing statutory restrictions.

Sources said Przyuski was the one who wrote the investigation report regarding Buckingham’s election/campaign issues.