Rasa cleared of charges

Former House Speaker Oscar Rasa was cleared yesterday of the 28 theft charges filed against him by the CNMI government.

Superior Court presiding judge Robert C. Naraja dismissed Rasa’s criminal case with prejudice. This means that the AGO is barred from bringing another lawsuit against Rasa based on the same claim.

The dismissal came about two weeks after the CNMI chief prosecutor Jeffrey Moots moved to dismiss the theft charges.

“This case should never have been filed in the first place. There was never deception on the part of Mr. Rasa,” said Edward Arriola Sr., attorney for Rasa.

The AGO had charged Rasa and his wife, Patricia, with 28 counts of theft by deception, alleging the couple’s commission of the offenses on several occasions from Dec. 16, 2003 to June 30, 2004.

An earlier AGO investigation showed that businessman Richard Szumiel issued to the Rasas 28 checks totaling $72,000 from December 2003 to June 2004, and some $7,500 in cash. The former lawmaker endorsed one check in the amount of $2,800, while Patricia Rasa endorsed almost all the checks issued by Szumiel.

The charges accused the Rasas of scheming to defraud Szumiel by obtaining numerous loans and misrepresenting that they would receive over $1 million in land compensation claim from the government. Verification made the AGO’s investigators revealed that the Rasas had no pending land compensation claim before the Marianas Public Lands Authority.

The charging documents alleged that the ownership of land that the Rasas allegedly represented that they would get compensated for had long been transferred to another person before the defendants’ transactions with Szumiel.

Arriola insisted that the Rasas have a pending land compensation claim. He added that there was a mistake in the investigation of the case, saying that a land in the name of the congressman’s son, Oscar Rasa II, had not been transferred to the ownership of a certain Jose Cabrera. The Rasas have verbally promised Szumiel to use the land as collateral for the loans, Arriola said.

Arriola said he would assist the Rasas in executing mortgage documents in favor of Szumiel.

The former lawmaker has close ties with Gov. Juan N. Babauta. The governor, in his personal capacity, posted a $3,000 bond in favor of each of the Rasa couple to spare them from spending last Christmas in jail in connection with the charges.

The AGO also sought the dismissal of the case against Rasa’s wife on June 15, 2005.