Dynasty retains NY lawyer for criminal case

Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino has hired Patrick J. Smith, a former federal prosecutor in the CNMI who has been named a New York super lawyer, to assist a local attorney in the criminal case filed against the company.

Bruce Berline, counsel for Hong Kong Entertainment (Overseas) Investment Ltd. that owns Tinian Dynasty, informed the U.S. District Court for the NMI yesterday that Smith has been retained to assist as his co-counsel in the defense of HKE in the criminal case.

Berline asked the court to allow Smith to appear and serve as his co-counsel in this case.

Smith, who now resides in New York, is a partner with the law firm DLA Piper, a global law firm that reportedly has 4,200 lawyers in more than 30 countries throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

Smith served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. District Courts for the NMI and Guam from 2002 to 2005.

In his declaration filed in federal court yesterday, Smith said HKE specifically desires that he be involved, along with Berline, to represent it in the case.

Smith has been recognized in Best Lawyers in America. He received the U.S. Department of Justice’s Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service and is a two-time recipient of the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an assistant U.S. attorney.

From 1995 to 2002 or before he was assigned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Districts of the CNMI and Guam, Smith was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

According to DLA Piper’s website, as a then-member of the Southern District’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, Smith investigated and prosecuted complex securities fraud schemes involving financial statement fraud, insider trading and market manipulation.

The superseding indictment has charged HKE with conspiracy to cause a financial institution to fail to file a currency transaction report, 155 counts of failure to file currency transaction reports, failure to file a suspicious activity report, and failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.

The initial indictment had charged HKE and then-VIP services manager George Que and then-casino manager Tim Blyth with only 10 charges.

According to the indictment, HKE allowed gamblers at Tinian Dynasty to conduct transactions involving more than $10,000 without filing currency transaction reports, or CTRs, with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, from Sept. 2009 to April 25, 2013.

Tinian Dynasty allegedly failed to file about 3,640 CTRs for cash transactions over $10,000 as required by law. The total dollar amount of reportable currency transactions that were not filed is about $1.38 million.

Que and Blyth had entered into a settlement deal with the U.S. government in exchange for the dismissal of the criminal charges against them.