Subpoena vs Torres’ BOG account quashed

Judge pro tem Arthur R. Barcinas, who is handling former governor Ralph DLG Torres’ criminal case in Superior Court, granted yesterday afternoon Torres’ motion to quash the subpoena that had sought to obtain his records from Bank of Guam, thus the bank need not hand over Torres’ bank records to the court.

In his order yesterday, Barcinas stated that he granted the motion to quash the subpoena because the bank records are not relevant to the crimes charged against Torres.

Assistant attorney general James Kingman, who is prosecuting the case, had applied for the subpoena to “investigate an ongoing litigation by the Commonwealth under the auspices of an active charge involving financial impropriety.”

Barcinas said, though, that if Kingman seeks to continue its investigation into Torres’ finances unrelated to the charges currently set to be tried, he must use alternative means.

The case against Torres charges him with misconduct in public office and intends to prove that Torres was a public official who completed an illegal act in office. The alleged illegal act that Torres did was violating the restrictions on government paid travel outside of the CNMI.

Ralph DLG Torres

Court documents stated that Kingman has already obtained numerous check stubs, deposit slips, notices of overdraw for travel authorizations, receipts and other documents concerning the case. Kingman said the documents did not match Torres’ statements, which is why a subpoena for the bank records was requested.

However, Barcinas said that if the CNMI already has documents concerning Torres’ transactions relating to the charges and his public statements, then the only bank records that would be related to the charges can be directly identified by the records already within the CNMI’s possession.

Further, the subpoena requests all records from January 2016 to January 2023. The charges in this case only cite illegal acts alleged to be committed between April 2018 and December 2018.

“Financial records previous to the alleged illegal acts and financial records from several years after the alleged illegal acts are irrelevant to this criminal matter. Even if the time frame in the subpoena was narrowed down to a timeframe closer to the alleged illegal acts, the bank records requested would also, as the subpoena is written, reveal purchases and information completely irrelevant to the alleged illegal acts. Every pharmacy purchase, every gift for a family member or friend, every restaurant visited would be subject to governmental scrutiny, making the majority of the records requested irrelevant to the charges in this case. For similar reasons, the subpoena should also be considered as failing to have the required specificity, and it fails on these grounds alone,” said Barcinas in his order.

Torres’ case was initially filed on April 8, 2022, charging him with 12 counts of misconduct in public office, one count of theft, and one count of contempt.

On May 9 this year, the CNMI requested for a subpoena that will order Bank of Guam to produce financial records concerning all transactions related to Torres’ bank account between January 2016 and January 2023.

Torres opposed the request.