Mike Phillips: Criminal Practice at the Port
THERE is so much shit floating at the Port Authority of Guam, that it is difficult to know where to begin. It has been decades since this level of politicized corruption has overwhelmed the critical agency, but under the Calvo/Tenorio administration a corrupt board has been allowed to collude with hired legal counsel to drain the coffers of the Port and push the edge of criminality to new heights. This is gonna be a long post...grab some popcorn, the air freshener, TP and settle in as we take a look at Attorney Mike Phillips in criminal practice at the Port of Guam.
Recent efforts by GTA executive and Port board chairman Dan Tydingco and his handpicked legal counsel attorney Mike Phillips have included slander, illegal terminations, witness tampering and egregious billing practices that may well constitute criminal conduct.
Because that is such a serious allegation, I think I will start there, with attorney Mike Phillips' unusual billing practice that not only recalculates the number of hours in a day, but could lead to the filing of a second ethic complaint against the troubled lawyer.
Tydingco and Phillips' scheme began to unravel with the sloppy and libelous removal of former Port general manager Mary Torres, under orders from the Calvo administration, after Torres began questioning the highly irregular legal billing practices Tydingco permitted Phillips.
Executive session and board minutes, as well as an extensive email trail show that Torres repeatedly attempted to have legal counsel submit invoices. This made her a threat and a target for Adelup and Tydingco.
No matter how she tried, Phillips, with the support of Tydingco simply ignored the requests for billings. This only served to arouse further suspicion with Torres, who continued to dig into the matter.
Shortly thereafter, Torres - who is wellregarded for her integrity - was unceremoniously dumped and libeled in a process intended to discredit her in a strategic preface to a slew of nefarious actions orchestrated by Adelup in collusion with Tydingco and Phillips.
While on vacation, PAG board chair and Adelup plotted a coup against Mary Torres that would remove her in order to proceed with the illegal termination of political foe, former Port marketing administrator Bernadette Meno. When previously pressured to execute the plot on behalf of Adelup, Torres bulked, citing insufficient cause to do so. Shortly thereafter a scheme to replace Torres with former DPW director Joanne Brown was hatched. Adelup chief of staff Frank Arriola confirmed to Torres that she, and six other Port workers, were merely "collateral damage" in their effort to ruin Meno. Torres had "her name dragged through the mud" for not going along with the political payback plot from Calvo. Until then, Torres was held in high esteem for an outstanding work ethic, her integrity and ability to build strong working relationships with boards and agencies in GovGuam.
The matter quickly caught the attention of vice speaker BJ Cruz.
Another brick in the wall
Cruz ran into a brick wall as he tried to learn more about the billing scandal. The former judge was then forced to FOIA a number of documents before learning that it was only AFTER the Calvo administration got rid of Torres that Phillips provided billing to the Port.
A review of the documents revealed to Cruz a disturbing pattern, seven delinquent invoices covering a period of nine months, that some have said prove “creative accounting practices” that are nothing less than fraud.
Also buried in the nearly 400-pages of billings, is a charge in November 2012 wherein Phillips' associate attorney John Bell claimed to have personally worked MORE than 24 hours. This, despite the laws of physics that disallow squeezing more than 1,440 minutes in a 24-hour period. (dude must drink more coffee than me!)
The vice speaker's suspicion increased when he realized that more than a quarter million dollars in legal billing were on the ledgers at the close of the 2012 fiscal year. He subsequently wrote to current Port GM Joanne Brown and asked her to explain that, and other oddities, which led to what Cruz described as “bloated legal billing.”
When called out by vice speaker BJ Cruz over questionable legal service billings GTA executive and Port board chairman Dan Tydingco began an unconvincing media press to distract, distort and otherwise lie to the public. PAG legal counsel Mike Phillips couldn't resist joining the chorus of lies with his own false-etto.
Cruz explained to Guamblog, “I just couldn't understand how the auditor was able to close out the books at the end of September if they had that much money owed for attorneys fees on the ledger still.”
At the end of the 2012 fiscal year, there was more than $270,000 in additional legal fees that Phillips still had not submitted and were left unpaid until February this year.
Cruz expressed to Brown in dripping sarcasm that, “I am forced to ask if PAG has additional legal counsel. He added, “Absent that scenario, the available explanations for the disparities listed above are few and far between.”
Nonetheless, scheister Tydingco immediately parsed Cruz's comment in a disgraceful media ploy aimed at and once again libeling Torres, suggesting she illegally retained former PAG counsel Lujan Aguigui & Perez, while Bordallo & Phillips were on contract.
The GTA executive confirmed to media that two law offices were on its payroll at a time. He told the public through interviews with numerous media outlets that the bloated legal expenses uncovered and questioned by vice speaker Cruz were due to this.
“The billings have taken place without our knowledge and we are looking into that,” the PAG board chairman falsely stated.
Mike Phillips doubled down on the deceit by further stating to media, “[The] inference that the port was paying a separate firm, from what we found, was accurate and unbeknownst to any of us and unbeknownst to board members,” said Phillips. “Somebody upstairs was paying a separate law firm during the time we were already on board.”
Fact is, they both lied in a failed attempt to implicate Torres in a wider conspiracy that simply doesn't exist. Documents show otherwise; Torres merely approved an outstanding invoice to Lujan Aguigui & Perez totaling about $600 for services rendered prior to her coming on board.
The big discrepancy Cruz referred to was a staggering amount that was inconsistent with the figure Phillips reported to auditors Deloitte & Touche in a January letter.
The auditors, attempting to reconcile the ledger for FY2012, wrote to Bordallo & Phillips asking for any outstanding amount owed the firm. Phillips signed a letter claiming to be owed $100,000.
However, that figure then inexplicably ballooned to more than $270,000 in a series of questionable invoices AFTER Phillips had wrote back to Deloite & Touche.
Above, in a letter to PAG auditors Deloitte & Touche, dated January 29, 2013, Darleen Hilton on behalf of Bordallo & Phillips confirmed that information previously submitted in November 2012 to the auditors was still valid: as of September 30, 2012 there was approximately $100,000 of unbilled legal fees for services rendered by the Port's legal counsel. Vice speaker questions how that figure then ballooned to more than a whopping $270,000. GTA executive Dan Tydingco, who is the PAG board chair and attorney Mike Phillips attributed the huge spike in Port legal fees to former GM Mary Torres paying out a $600 overdue bill to the previous Port legal counsel, Lujan Aguigui & Perez. (HA! Yeah right boys! I suppose next you'll try to tell us GovGuam has a $30 million surplus!)
Cruz said he found it queer that seven invoices covering an average of nine months following their associated service dates, was inconsistent with the previous pattern showing a 30-day period between service dates and invoice submissions. He wanted to know why Torres didn’t receive invoices for 62 percent of the billing amount for legal services during her tenure at the Port for all of FY2012.
According to a PAG source, “The falsification of legal service billing is criminal and should lead to a second ethic complaint against attorneys Phillips and Bell. Tydingco's role in the whole affair merits investigation by the AGO,” the source said, adding, “There are other instance of strange practices the administration is working hard to conceal from the public, including the fact that the Board never voted on removing the cap for legal service which is a run around the entire procurement process.”
The original legal service contract cap was $499,000, just the threshold amount which would trigger involvement by the AGO for contract review. Tydingco removed the cap and the new value of the contract is now $2.5 million.
An administration officials and blog follower admitted to Guamblog, “They changed the contract after the bid. That should be a violation of procurement law. The real question is how did it soar from half a million dollars to five times that amount?”
Tydingco and Phillips have unsuccessfully attempted to justify the enormous spike in legal service fees at the Port. They blame a heavy workload involving the high number of adverse actions taken by the new GM and the Port board.
What they failed to note during their fullcourt media press however, is the fact they are directly responsible for executing the campaign of political retribution from Adelup that led to the illegal terminations at the Port of Guam and, according to Phillip's billing an unparalleled number of hours devoted to research and lunching over the cases.
Hullabaloo and bolla bolla, too
A Civil Service Commission source opined last week to Guamblog that this latest “hullabaloo” is "a farce meant to distract the public and preempt what is likely to be the most contentious appearance yet before the CSC next week."
The highly anticipated hearing will be held tomorrow (Thu. Aug 1) at the Sinajana offices of the CSC.
That's when “Port 7” targets Vivian Leon and her attorney Ike Aguigui are expected appear for a hearing, along with Francine Rocio and her attorney Georgette Concepcion.
The Committee says Leon and Rocio have uncovered documents that Phillips has heretofore been able to conceal from the CSC and Port 7 lawyers.
Executive session transcripts for December 5, 2012 purport to demonstrate a pattern of deception parlayed by Phillips, in collusion with the Port board, regarding the 60-day adverse action deadline procedure.
The transcripts are alleged to show that Phillips, counter to what he has presented to the CSC to date, knew that the “triggering date” for adverse action to be taken was October 16, 2012. If true, that means the legal period the board had to execute their plot had expired, as it was not until Dec. 18, 2012 – 63 days after the start of the trigger date – that the board began their elimination of the Port 7.
It would seem that the smear campaign against Mary Torres may have delayed the execution of their plot longer than they had originally planned. That 72-hour delay could unravel their entire cover of deceit, woven over the course of the past year.
Like I said, at the start of this post, there is way too much shit floating at the Port for local media to want to go wading into. And THIS is just one more in a taut string of unethical, if not criminal, activities taking place at the island'sonly seaport. Other issues that raise eyebrows (and concern) are the Searle contract, witness tampering, fabricating evidence, the YTK contract, Casamar, but include much more.
Stay tuned to Guamblog – and I promise to try to make sense of this of for you as it falls apart for the Calvo administration, Tydingco and Phillips. It's a dirty job, I know. But somebody's got to do it...oh wait, isn't that what Mike told Dan?
