Federal court agrees to delay once more trial of Leyda Ada

The federal court has agreed to delay again the jury trial of Leyda I. Ada, who is accused of conspiring with her husband in a health care and food stamp scam in an amount exceeding $1.7 million.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona cancelled the jury trial set for March 24, 2015, and set a new trial date for June 1, 2015.

Ada’s counsel, Mark B. Hanson, and assistant U.S. attorney Garth R. Backe had jointly asked the court to reset the trial date to ensure that expert reports are completed.

Hanson and Backe agreed that the case is unusual and complex given the nature and breadth of the allegations against Ada, its underlying facts, and the extensive documentation.

The lawyers said that, without enough time to complete an investigation, Hanson would have no time to prepare effectively for trial.

In support of the allegations, the U.S. government provided Ada with about 35,000 pages of Bates stamped documents and a substantial amount of additional printed materials. The prosecution also produced a voluminous amount of electronic discovery.

Ada has retained the services of a forensic document examiner and she expects to provide a report from that expert to the U.S. government by March 20, 2015.

The lawyers said the information available to the expert has since been corrected and the expert is in the process of preparing a new report based on the corrected information.

After receiving the report from Ada’s expert, the prosecution believes that it may take up eight weeks for its own expert to review Ada’s expert’s report and prepare and obtain approval for its own report.

The parties agreed that they are not ready to proceed with the March 24 trial.

Last August, Ada also asked to reset the trial due to difficulties of securing forensic handwriting experts and voluminous materials.

Manglona granted Ada’s motion to continue the Sept. 9, 2014, trial and set it for Oct. 6, 2014. The trial was then later set for March 24, 2015.

Ada pleaded not guilty to the second superseding indictment charging her with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of money laundering, five counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit food stamp fraud, and one count of perjury.

The original indictment charged Ada and her husband, Melvin Ada, with 59 counts.

Melvin Ada is a former employee of the Commonwealth Health Center who pleaded guilty to 56 charges for misappropriating and diverting CNMI Treasury checks made payable to a medical supplier company totaling over $1.7 million. He is awaiting sentencing.

Melvin Ada was previously a medical supply specialist at CHC. Leyda Ada used to be a sales representative for Midwest Medical Supply Co. Inc., a Missouri-based company that had supplied dialysis consumables and equipment to CHC.