Ogumoro gets 1-year prison term

Former Department of Public Safety deputy commissioner Ambrosio T. Ogumoro and his counsel, Daniel Guidotti, leave the courtroom after Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman imposed a one-year prison term sentence on Ogumoro for his conviction of three felonies and six misdemeanors. Behind Ogumoro is cultural preservationist Lino Olopai. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)

Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman yesterday slapped a one-year imprisonment sentence against former Department of Public Safety deputy commissioner Ambrosio T. Ogumoro for his conviction on three felonies and six misdemeanors.

“This court believes that a great harm to any society or community is corruption in any form and especially in the form of a breach of the public trust that is vested in an employee or as in this case a high ranking official, an acting commissioner of DPS,” Wiseman said.

The 57-year-old Ogumoro remained calm when the judge announced the sentence. The courtroom was packed mostly with the defendant’s family members, relatives, and friends. Four court marshals were in the courtroom.

Special prosecutor George Lloyd Hasselback, counsel for the government, told the media after the hearing that Wiseman’s imposition of one-year jail term demonstrates to the public that the court is taking public corruption seriously.

“This closed the final chapter of the very sad story of the Commonwealth history,” Hasselback.

Ogumoro and his counsel, Daniel Guidotti, refused to comment about the sentence.

Wiseman ordered Ogumoro to pay a $3,500 fine, $100 court costs, plus restitution and probation fee in an amount to be determined later.

After serving the prison term, the defendant will be placed on probation for three years. He was required to perform 300 hours of community work service.

Ogumoro is barred from re-employment directly or indirectly with the CNMI government for a period of 10 years.

The judge allowed Ogumoro to start serving the prison term at the Department of Corrections after two weeks.

Wiseman noted the defendant’s years of public service and achievements, an outstanding career in the U.S. Marine Corps, retiring as a master sergeant.

Wiseman said he received numerous letters of support, a petition with over 1,500 signatures and statements made in court yesterday urging leniency.

Former lawmakers Juan Morgen Tenorio and Benigno Sablan and cultural preservationist Lino Olopai spoke in court, requesting for “mercy and leniency.” They cited Ogumoro’s numerous contributions to the community and to the country.

Wiseman said he welcomes and appreciates the many letters and petitions of support for defendant, from family and friends, many of whom he has known, admired, and respected for several decades.

Wiseman said as to the crimes of conspiracy to commit theft of services and theft of services, defendant treated the time, money, and resources of the law enforcement personnel as his own private property and dispatched the good men and women who serve the community away from their duties to protect the public with the express purpose of breaking the law.

As to the crime of misconduct in public office, Wiseman said Ogumoro’s acts demonstrated a flagrant display of abuse of authority.

Wiseman said that, on Aug. 13, 2012, when the CNMI Office of the Public Auditor filed criminal charges against former Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham, Ogumoro participated in and actively interfered with the ongoing criminal process through his subordinates in DPS, and other members of the conspiracy.

Wiseman said Ogumoro carried out the unlawful desires and order of then-governor Benigno R. Fitial, now a convicted felon, with an elaborate plot to employ armed police officers to escort Buckingham to the airport in the early morning hours in order to avoid service of a penal summons.

Wiseman also noted that Ogumoro has a pending criminal case yet to go to trial for criminal charges that relate to alleged abuses of power in his capacity as deputy or acting DPS commissioner.

Wiseman said the supporters’ gratitude expressed in their statements and letters for the good things defendant has done is reasonable and appropriate.

“But the requests for exceptional leniency and a few for no jail time are based on the idea that someone who does good things cannot also do bad things or that the good directly offsets the bad,” he pointed out.

Wiseman said based on the convictions of the nine crimes, they represented that perhaps Ogumoro was a direct actor in a culture of ethical failure in his service, which was promoted by Fitial and his administration.

“The very definition of corruption is an official’s use of its office to procure some benefit either personally or for someone else, contrary to the rights of others,” he said.

Wiseman reiterated his statements in the sentencing of Fitial and other government officials who have come before his courtroom that such conduct cannot, should not and will not be tolerated.

He said the proverbial message must be frequently sent that government officials who betray the public trust by violating the laws of the CNMI will in all likelihood go to jail.

The judge said the crimes committed here were grave and call for a sanction of corresponding significance.

At the same time, he said, the court weighs the need to order a serious sanction with the existence of other circumstances specific to the individual.

Wiseman said defendant’s counsel, Guidotti, argues that the underlying conduct in this case is banal which is defined as ordinary or boring.

“Such description distorts the factual findings of the case.

Here, Wiseman said, the facts were proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a head of an enforcement agency—someone who was entrusted to promote justice and peace in the CNMI as a commander officer—issued orders to improperly employ the full range of DPS’s powers of armed protection to just one or two persons at the public offense.

“These are extraordinary acts that all six members of the jury and this court found to be illegal. To call such extraordinary acts banal is simply misleading, and the court is not persuaded by defendant’s efforts to grossly ameliorate such findings in arguing a lighter sentence,” he said.

Hasselback recommended the maximum sentence of 18 years of imprisonment.

The special prosecutor said for his crimes, Ogumoro deserves the harshest punishment.

Guidotti recommended a sentence of three years imprisonment, all suspended.

The defense counsel cited Ogumoro’s distinguished service in the U.S. Marine Corps, his public services to the CNMI, the nonviolent nature of his actions, and the fact that he was acting on orders from his superior, then-governor Fitial.

Guidotti said if Fitial was the screenwriter, producer, and director of the plan to assist Buckingham with departing the CNMI without being served with the penal summons, then Ogumoro was merely an actor on stage.

But Hasselback replied that although he agrees that Ogumoro was an actor in this case, the defendant was not a puppet.

The CNMI Adult Probation recommended 12 years sentence, all suspended except for five years.

Last Jan. 26, Wiseman announced his verdict finding Ogumoro guilty of seven of nine corruption charges for his role in the shielding of then-AG Buckingham from being served with penal summons in August 2012.

Wiseman found Ogumoro guilty of five counts of misconduct in public office, one count of obstructing justice: Interference with a law enforcement officer or witness, and one count of criminal coercion.

A Superior Court jury also rendered a unanimous verdict finding Ogumoro guilty of conspiracy to commit theft of services and theft of services pertaining to the same incident of shielding of Buckingham.

Ogumoro is the last defendant in this case.

Last Jan. 13, former Commonwealth Ports Authority police chief Jordan Kosam entered a guilty plea while the charges against his co-defendant, former CPA police captain John T. Rebuenog, were dismissed.

Kosam pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct in public office. Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja sentenced Kosam to one-year imprisonment, but suspended the imposition of the sentence.

Naraja placed Kosam on three years of supervised release. Wiseman dismissed the charges against Rebuenog after Hasselback moved to drop the charges.

Fitial pleaded guilty, while Buckingham was convicted during a bench trial. Fitial and Buckingham did not serve prison term. The charges against Fitial’s former personal driver and bodyguard Jermaine Joseph W. Nekaifes were dismissed.