Jucutan guilty on all eight counts

Former U.S. Army Reserve member Jordan M. Jucutan, middle, and his wife along with family members, relatives, and friends, emerge from the Horiguchi Building in Garapan after the federal court read the jury’s verdict yesterday afternoon. Jucutan was found guilty of all eight charges. (Ferdie de la Torre)

A federal jury reached a unanimous verdict yesterday, finding former U.S. Army Reserve member Jordan M. Jucutan guilty of all charges for engaging in a scheme to defraud and to obtain money by falsely claiming he referred soldiers to enlist in the Army Reserve through the Army Reserves Recruiter Assistant Program (AR-RAP).

After deliberating for less than seven hours, the 12 jurors found Jucutan guilty of four counts of wire fraud and four counts of aggravated identity theft.

Jucutan burst into tears when a court staff read the guilty verdict.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Senior Judge Alex R. Munson set the sentencing for Oct. 14, 2016 at 9am.

Assistant U.S. attorney Russell H. Lorfing, counsel for the U.S. government, did not move for Jucutan’s detention pending the sentencing.

Munson allowed Jucutan to remain at liberty until the sentencing.

Munson asked defense counsel Pamela Brown Blackburn if she will be filing any motions.

Blackburn said she needs to speak with his client before making any motions.

Blackburn and Lorfing both refused to comment to the media after the hearing.

Family members, relatives, and supporters surrounded Jucutan and his wife as they emerged from the Horiguchi Building in Garapan after the hearing.

The jurors began deliberating for less than 25 minutes on Wednesday and resumed their deliberations yesterday at 8am. The jurors sent a note to the court that they reached a verdict at 3pm.

Munson reconvened at 3:50pm.

The trial started last May 17. Assistant U.S. attorney Lorfing called a total of 14 witnesses, while defense counsel Blackburn called Jucutan and nine other witnesses to the stand.

Jucutan was a member of the Army Reserve from November 2006 until he retired in November 2014. He is currently a teacher at Dandan Middle School.

According to the second superseding indictment, using an online portal/website, Jucutan electronically submitted the personal identifiable information for four nominees without the knowledge or consent of the nominees on Aug. 25 and 26, 2007, and on June 6, 2009, and on Oct. 28, 2007.

According to Lorfing, over the period of the charged scheme, Jucutan nominated 38 people—of which only 15 were nominated with the consent of the future soldier.

Lorfing said Jucutan was paid $17,000 in compensation after nine of his nominees signed enlistment papers and shipped to boot camp.

The four wirings charged in the indictment were done when Jucutan submitted the personal information of various nominees through the Document & Packaging Brothers Inc. (Docupak) website.

Docupak was a contractor based in Alabama tasked to administer AR-RAP.

The four aggravated identity theft charges were done when Jucutan possessed various soldiers’ Social Security numbers without their permission.

AR-RAP was designed to assist the Army Reserve meet its recruiting goals by offering financial incentives to soldiers known as Recruiting Assistants (RA).

Lorfing said RAs were expected to personally recruit future soldiers that were within their sphere of influence such as friends, family members, classmates, and acquaintances, among others.

Jucutan worked as RA for Docupak. Like other RAs, Jucutan was paid based on the number of people he personally recruited and mentored to join the Army Reserve.

Lorfing said if the future soldier ultimately signed an enlistment contract, the RA who actually recruited that nominee would receive a $1,000 payment through direct deposit into a bank account designated by the RA in his online RA account.

The RA would receive an additional $1,000 direct deposit payment if the nominee attended basic training.

The AR-RAP prohibited an RA from nominating a nominee who the RA did not personally recruit. The RA was required to obtain a nominee’s personal information directly from that nominee in order to receive the financial incentive for that nominee, according to Lorfing.

According to the indictment, from Aug. 10, 2007 until Nov. 6, 2009, Jucutan devised a scheme to defraud Docupak, and to obtain money from Docupak by falsely claiming that he personally recruited certain soldiers despite knowing that such representations were false and fraudulent when made.

While volunteering at the recruitment center on Saipan, Jucutan would secretly record future soldiers’ personal identifiable information such as their Social Security number to Docupak through his online account.

Jucutan would use this personal identifiable information to falsely claim that he was responsible for referring and recruiting these future soldiers to join the Army Reserve, when in fact he did not refer or recruit each soldier he claimed.

Jucutan would create false logs in his online account to make it appear as though he knew the future soldiers and that he had been personally interacting with these future soldiers.

Docupak personnel, in reliance upon Jucutan’s false statements and fraudulent conduct, authorized payments via wire from Docupak’s bank account at First Commercial Bank in Alabama, to Jucutan’s personal bank accounts at Bank of Guam and First Hawaiian Bank. Docupak would then submit these payments to the U.S. Army Reserve for reimbursement, according to the indictment.

Jucutan was originally charged with 15 counts—one count of theft by government property, five counts of aggravated identity theft, and nine counts of wire fraud. The U.S. government subsequently reduced the number of charges to eight.