Lujan says Hillbroom a fugitive

For filing on the eve of a scheduled deposition, the federal court denied Monday Guam lawyer David J. Lujan’s motion to suspend all proceedings in Junior Larry Hillbroom’s lawsuit against him and another lawyer.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona noted that Lujan’s motion to suspend was filed Sunday at 10:05pm, but offers no explanation as to why he waited until the eve of his deposition to file this motion or why he failed to raise this issue at the motion to compel hearing.

Manglona denied Lujan’s motion and ordered him to sit for his deposition as scheduled for Monday and yesterday.

Deposition refers to taking of the testimony of a witness outside of court.

In his motion, Lujan asserts that the Palau Court issued a warrant for Hillbroom’s arrest in January 2019. To support this motion, Lujan filed a screenshot of an undated article from the Island Times, a Palau newspaper.

Lujan asked the federal court to suspend all proceedings in this case, including discovery, pending the court’s determination of the applicability of the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine.

Lujan said Hillbroom is a fugitive from the courts of Belau (Palau) as he has willfully defied the warrant issued in January 2019 by refusing to surrender to authorities and that he shows no intention to surrender any time soon.

Lujan said the Fugitive Disentitlement Doctrine prevents Hillbroom from pursuing his complaint while he is a fugitive from Palau courts. He said Palau is a sovereign nation that has entered into a Compact of Free Association with the U.S.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather L. Kennedy has ordered Lujan’s deposition take place at the CNMI district court but Lujan said that Kennedy acted without regard to the fact that Hillbroom faces criminal charges in Palau and that an arrest warrant has been issued because of his failure to comply with orders of the Palau courts.

He said Hillbroom’s disregard of the law for more than six months o should not be tolerated or encouraged by the district court.

Lujan believes that Hillbroom is somewhere in the U.S. mainland and, by refusing to return to Palau to face his criminal charges, he is a fugitive.

Lujan said Hillbroom’s lawyer has an ethical duty to disclose where Hillbroom is so that he may be detained and remanded to Palau. The lawyer has previously connected Hillbroom to court proceedings via telephone.

During proceedings in this case, he said, the district court has been made aware that Hillbroom is a fugitive.

Hillbroom has sought payment of $22,646 in total costs and attorney’s fees from Lujan as sanction over the lawyer’s behavior during his deposition.

Kennedy earlier ruled that sanctions against Lujan are appropriate.

Hillbroom filed a motion to compel Lujan to resume his deposition on Saipan as Lujan allegedly displayed obstructive conduct and improperly left during his deposition in Guam. Hillbroom had also asked the court to sanction Lujan.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona earlier found that Lujan violated Model Rules of Professional Conduct when he talked on the phone conversation with Hillbroom and taped that conversation.

Manglona has barred Lujan from any contact with Hillbroom without the written consent of Hillbroom’s lawyer.

Manglona has granted Hillbroom’s request that Lujan and lawyer Barry J. Israel be made to pay their attorney’s fees in the amount of $11,750 for the costs of replying to defendants’ motion to dismiss Hillbroom’s lawsuit.

In 2009, Hillbroom sued Lujan and Israel for allegedly conspiring with former trustee Keith Waibel to inflate their contingency fee when the fortune of the late DHL co-founder Larry Hillblom was still undergoing proceedings in the Superior Court.

The trial is set this November.

Lujan and Israel, who were former lawyers for Hillbroom, denied the allegations.

Hillbroom is one of the four DNA-proven children of Hillblom. His name is spelled differently from that of Hillblom.

Hillblom died in a seaplane crash off Anatahan waters on May 21, 1995. Although his body was never recovered, the court declared him dead.