‘Malite estate due to get $3.45M settlement’

The government has entered into a $3.45 million settlement with the Malite estate to end the land compensation dispute, the estate’s attorney said yesterday.

Malite estate attorney Antonio Atalig said the settlement was reached before former Attorney General Pamela Brown vacated her post.

“Pam Brown, before she left the [Attorney General’s] office, she signed the settlement,” Atalig said.

Atalig did not show a copy of the settlement when asked by the Saipan Tribune, but said that the settlement is as good as a done deal, with only “minor changes” waiting to be resolved. He said those changes do not involve the settlement amount.

“We’re getting near to close [the dispute],” Atalig said. “Right now, the government wants to settle. They do not want litigation, too. The AG wants to settle this for $3.45 million.”

Atalig, who was present in yesterday’s Marianas Public Lands Authority board meeting, said the settlement has the blessing of the administration of Gov. Benigno Fitial.

Sometime last year, Atalig disclosed that talks with the AGO about a possible settlement were going on, saying that the government had even offered to pay the estate a higher amount than the initial settlement offer of approximately $1.72 million. AGO’s James Livingstone said, however, that the talks fizzled out, a claim that Atalig denied.

Brown filed a civil action before the CNMI Superior Court sometime in December 2004 to prevent the drawdown of some $3.45 million in land compensation being claimed by the estate from the government’s land compensation fund.

The complaint impleaded the estate’s administrator, Jesus Tudela, the Marianas Public Lands Authority, its board members and commissioner as defendants. The MPLA board had approved the payment of $3.45 million to the Malite estate. Brown had claimed that there were circumstances surrounding the transaction that create a “strong appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest.”

The land compensation issue had already been decided by a Trust Territory court in 1978. That court determined the compensation for condemnation of a parcel of land, which now forms part of the Marianas High School, in the amount of $3,682. The Commonwealth government obtained title to the land as a result of the condemnation.

The estate claimed, however, that it failed to receive a single penny pursuant to the Trust Territory court’s order.

In the complaint, Brown’s attorneys questioned the amount of $3.45 million—approximately 1,000 times higher than the compensation determined in the 1978 Trust Territory court order—which they claimed to be a final judgment in which no appeal was taken.

Even if the Trust Territory court’s judgment was not actually satisfied, the amount of $3.45 million does not conform to valuation provisions of the law, with the AGO saying that valuation of condemned land should be determined at the time of the taking of the property by the Commonwealth government.

The AGO had contended that conflicts of interest taint the MPLA board’s approval of the $3.45 million claim, saying that lawyer Atalig is brother to then MPLA board member Benita Atalig-Manglona. Atalig’s brother, the late ex-Supreme Court Justice Pedro Atalig, was a former MPLA board member. The Atalig Law Offices’ manager, Juan Demapan, is brother of MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro.

Proceedings at the Superior Court earlier resulted in the subpoena of then Gov. Juan N. Babauta and then Finance Secretary Fermin Atalig, among other witnesses.

The estate and the MPLA defendants also questioned Brown’s legitimacy as attorney general and her authority to initiate the court action.