Fund: Jorgensen misleading public about his biz location

Attorney Bruce Jorgensen is either running his law practice from the residential homes of associates or clients, or he is misleading the public regarding his business location, according to the NMI Retirement Fund.

Fund legal counsel Braddock J. Huesman pointed out that Jorgensen has no correct address listed with the U.S. District Court for the NMI.

Instead of filing a business address as required by the Local Rules, Huesman said that Jorgensen has filed an admittedly defunct address with the court and routinely used the home addresses of other people he may or may not be associated with.

As an example, Huesman cited that Jorgensen, as counsel for unnamed retirees who are suing the Fund and Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, used co-counsel’s Timmothy Lord’s home address as his business address.

“This was so even after Mr. Jorgensen informed the court, orally, that Mr. Lord would no longer be participating in the case,” Huesman said.

At some point thereafter, Huesman said, Jorgensen “changed” the address in his pleadings-but not the address registered with the District Court-to the home address of an individual whom Jorgensen attempted to improperly substitute as a plaintiff in the unnamed retirees’ lawsuit.

Finally, Huesman said, the only mail he has received from Jorgensen had a return Price address, a South Carolina address, but it was postmarked from Honolulu, Hawaii.

Huesman stated this comments in response to Sapuro Rayphand’s bid to strike the Fund’s motion to remand the Fund’s lawsuit, saying it appears that Jorgensen has asked the District Court to strike a paper on the basis that a certificate of service had an incorrect address.

“Against this backdrop, Mr. Jorgensen appears to be requesting that the motion to remand be struck on the basis that the accompanying certificate of service contained the only actual address he has registered with this court, the Maryland address,” Huesman said.

Putting aside the bizarre nature of the request, Huesman said that seeking a highly punitive sanction for listing an address that is the only official address Jorgensen has listed with the court “is wholly improper given the facts and state of the law.”

The Fund counsel said Jorgensen’s and Raypand’s request lacks merit and should be denied.

Rayphand, through Jorgensen, has asked the federal court to allow the transfer of the Fund’s lawsuit against the CNMI government from the Superior Court to the District Court.

In Rayphand’s opposition to Fund’s motion to remand the lawsuit to the Superior Court, Jorgensen said that the Commonwealth Retirement Association’s standing as a post-judgment intervenor was recognized by the parties in the lawsuit.

Jorgensen said that Superior Court associate judge Kenneth L. Govendo had granted CRA’s intervention.

On the Fund’s motion to impose sanction against Jorgensen, Jorgensen said that Huesman’s assertion is a frivolous sanction request that does not merit a monetary award.

Rayphand wants the case transferred to the federal court because it has been more than two years now since associate judge Govendo rendered a $230 million judgment in the case yet there has been little, if any, meaningful steps toward enforcement of that judgment.