AGO now readying charges vs Rasa couple

The Attorney General’s Office is readying criminal charges against former House Speaker Oscar C. Rasa and his wife Patricia and may file them in court next week.

Police arrested the Rasas Wednesday last week in connection with a complaint by an 82-year-old businessman that they allegedly duped him into extending them loans by claiming that they would receive over $1 million in land compensation claim from the government.

Jail officials released the Rasa couple Thursday afternoon after Gov. Juan N. Babauta posted $3,000-bond for each of the defendants, sparing the former lawmaker from celebrating Christmas behind bars.

Police nabbed the Rasa couple at the Aqua Resort Club Wednesday after Superior Court judge Ramona Manglona issued warrants requested by the Attorney General’s Investigative Unit. The AGIU charged the Rasas with theft and theft by deception.

The AGIU is accusing the Rasas of carrying out a loan scheme that deceived businessman Richard Szumiel of their repayment capability by misrepresenting that they would receive over $1 million from the government’s land compensation fund.

Verification made with the Marianas Public Lands Authority showed that the Rasas do not have any pending land compensation claim.

“The pertinent land claimed to be due compensation by the Rasas had already been transferred to another individual long before these transactions took place with Mr. Szumiel,” the AGIU said.

Szumiel issued to the Rasas 28 checks totaling $72,000 from December 2003 to June 2004, and some $7,500 in cash, the AGIU said. The former lawmaker allegedly endorsed one check in the amount of $2,800, while his wife endorsed almost all the checks issued by Szumiel.

The Rasas managed to win the trust of Szumiel after the couple helped facilitate the cancellation of his adopted son’s farm plot revocation.

After helping Szumiel’s adopted son, the Rasas allegedly began asking him for loans, making promises of repayment as soon as the government pays their purported land compensation claim, the AGIU said.

Szumiel began doubting the Rasas repayment capability when the former lawmaker failed to show up at their agreed place in June 2004, after the latter promised to make some payment. He started making verifications with the MPLA, which informed him that the Rasas did not have any land compensation claim. Szuniel claimed that the Rasas began avoiding him since then. (John Ravelo)