# Benigno Fitial

# Benigno Fitial

Benigno Repeki Fitial (born November 27, 1945) is a politician of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands who served as its governor from January 9, 2006, until his resignation on February 20, 2013. The National Governors Association records that he was born in the Northern Mariana Islands, holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Guam, and is married to Josie P. Fitial, with six children. The *Marianas Variety*, reporting the resignation, described him as the commonwealth’s first Carolinian governor, the first candidate of a third party to become chief executive, the first governor of the islands to be impeached, and the first to resign the office.

Before taking office he had been a public-radio news director, a budget analyst, a budget officer, and a chief administrative officer, and had been president of banking, insurance, travel, and transportation businesses. He sat in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 12th, and 14th Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives, six terms in which he served as minority leader, vice speaker, and speaker. In the November 2005 general election the Commonwealth Election Commission tallied 3,766 votes for the Covenant Party ticket of Benigno Repeki Fitial and Timothy Pangelinan Villagomez, 3,682 for independents Heinz Sablan Hofschneider and David Mundo Apatang, 3,584 for the Republican ticket of incumbent Juan Nekai Babauta and Diego Tenorio Benavente, and 2,440 for Democrats Froilan Cruz Tenorio and Antonio Aguon Santos. He was sworn in on January 9, 2006, at the end of Babauta’s term, and was re-elected in 2009.

The 2009 race went to a runoff. The *Marianas Variety* reported that on November 7 Heinz Hofschneider led Fitial by eight votes and that no ticket reached the majority a statute had required since Fitial’s 2005 win, which the paper described as 28 percent of the vote and a margin of 84 ballots. As governor he sued in federal court in the District of Columbia to stop the United States from applying its immigration laws to the commonwealth under the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, arguing that foreign workers would have to leave and that the statute broke the covenant of political union.

On February 11, 2013, the House adopted 13 of 18 articles in House Resolution 18-2 by 16 votes to 4, charging felony, corruption, and neglect of duty, and put the other five articles over to the next morning. Debate that day covered a no-bid power contract of about $190 million with Saipan Development LLC and a massage given to the governor by a woman held as a federal detainee. His resignation letter, effective at 10 a.m. on February 20, 2013, cited personal health and the best interests of the commonwealth and did not mention impeachment; Lieutenant Governor Eloy S. Inos then became governor, and Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider was sworn in as lieutenant governor. Radio New Zealand reported that he had been served the day before with a summons to a Senate trial set for March 7.

The *Saipan Tribune* reported on May 14, 2015, that Fitial had pleaded guilty the day before, by teleconference from Makati in the Philippines, to misconduct in public office and conspiracy to commit theft of services, and called him the first chief executive of the commonwealth to be convicted. The misdemeanor concerned the January 8, 2010, release of a woman from the Department of Corrections so she could massage him at his house; the felony concerned a publicly funded armed escort that kept then-Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham from being served at Saipan International Airport on August 3 or 4, 2012. On June 24, 2015, Superior Court Judge David Wiseman ordered him to serve one year in prison, the unsuspended part of a longer term, and to pay $6,000 in fines, followed by a year of probation and a permanent bar on employment with the commonwealth government. On July 5, 2015, Governor Inos commuted that jail time, including the suspended portion, and left the court’s other conditions in place, citing Fitial’s health.

## Early life and education

### Family and childhood

Benigno Repeki Fitial was born on Saipan, in what became the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, on November 27, 1945. The National Governors Association gives the same date and birthplace, and in November 2009 the *Marianas Variety* reported that he would turn 64 on November 27. He was born while Chamorro and Carolinian civilians were still held at Camp Chalan Kanoa, where U.S. authorities had moved them from Camp Susupe on November 15, 1944, after the Battle of Saipan; historian Don A. Farrell wrote that the camp closed only on July 4, 1946.

In a 1993 interview with Howard P. Willens and Deanne C. Siemer, Fitial said his father was born on Saipan and his mother on Alamagan, and that both grew up on Saipan. His father, he said, worked first for a scrap company he called Microl and later for Public Works utilities. He identified his father as Taisican and named Benjamin Taisican Manglona, Leon Taisican, and Felipe Atalig as relatives.

Fitial spoke as a Carolinian, the community local reporting also calls Refaluwasch. He had never visited the Caroline Islands, he said, but his ancestors supposedly came from an island he called Satoa, home of a close relative: the navigator he named Peiluk, “Mau” in accounts of a Hawaii-to-Tahiti canoe voyage, who shared the family tree and explained it to him. Voyaging-society material identifies Pius “Mau” Piailug as a master navigator from Satawal, and the [National Park Service](/organizations/national-park-service) notes that Carolinians settled Saipan in the early nineteenth century after typhoons destroyed homelands in the Carolines. The *Marianas Variety* later called Fitial the commonwealth’s first Carolinian governor, and Farrell called him an indigenous Carolinian whose rise “brought pride to the Carolinian community of Saipan.”

The family, he recalled, lived in Chalan Kanoa, where he said almost everyone remained until outlying villages were cleared; Carolinians were concentrated in District 4, near the beach, and Chamorro families in the other three districts, a separation he said he had not noticed as a child. During grade school they moved to San Jose Oleai, where his grandfather owned a large tract Fitial described as once comprising the village and later exchanged for a homestead in upper Gualo Rai; a sister and other relatives built a chapel there in the grandfather’s memory.

### Education and early employment

Fitial attended a kindergarten later known as Sister Remedios School and then Mount Carmel School, a Catholic school, graduating in 1964. He went on to college rather than to a job, and he said he graduated from the University of Guam in 1976 with a major in business management after also attending the University of California, Davis, the University of Nebraska, and, for one semester, a Mexican university the transcript calls the University of Senora. He said the moves reflected a wish to travel, with study alternating with returns to Saipan. The National Governors Association calls the Guam degree a bachelor’s in business administration and says the university recognized him as a distinguished alumnus; Farrell likewise credited a business-management degree from the university.

His first Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands job, he said, was in 1967 as news director of station KJQR for about a year, under his first cousin Felix Rabauliman, the station manager in the Department of Public Affairs; he was also a Micronesian News Service correspondent. Reassigned to the Department of Administration, he was a budget analyst from 1968 to 1975 without further schooling, returned to the university in 1975, finished in 1976, and went back to the Budget Office until the commonwealth government began. On January 9, 1978, he became budget officer of the first Commonwealth Legislature. An NGA summary also lists a chief-administrative-officer role, and Farrell has described him as chief administrative officer of that legislature. In the late 1960s he was an incorporator of the United Carolinian Association, a group he called social in aim but a Carolinian voice in political-status debates; every Carolinian, he said, counted as a member, and he put the community then at about 5,000. From the legislature’s budget office he was elected to the second Commonwealth House.

## Private-sector career

### Tan Holdings and the garment industry

Between periods in the Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives, Benigno R. Fitial worked in private business. A National Governors Association summary states that he served as president of banking, insurance, travel, transportation, and other large-scale businesses. The *Marianas Variety* has identified him as a former executive of Tan Holdings. Under the covenant that created the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the islands controlled immigration and set their own minimum wage, then $3.05 an hour. Garments made there entered the United States duty-free and without quota, and could be labeled as made in the United States.

In 1999 the industry directly employed about 16,000 people, about 13,500 of them foreign workers, the Government Accountability Office reported, and in 1998 it contributed about $52 million, 22 percent of the commonwealth budget. A 1998 Senate committee report traced commercial textile production to a first firm in October 1983 and recorded repeated allegations of abuse of domestic and garment workers, which led Congress in 1994 to set aside $7 million for a larger federal presence.

The enforcement record covered more than one employer. In 1993 *The [New York](/organizations/new-york) Times* called Willie Tan Saipan’s largest clothesmaker and reported that he had agreed to pay $9 million in back wages and damages to more than 1,000 workers, most of them Chinese, to settle [U.S. Department of Labor](/organizations/united-states-department-of-labor) charges. Investigators said workers in his factories worked as many as 90 hours a week without overtime, at times for as little as $1.65 an hour. The [Occupational Safety and Health Administration](/organizations/occupational-safety-and-health-administration) called conditions in factories and barracks, including Tan’s, appalling, then dropped charges after $1.3 million in repairs and $76,000 in penalties. Tan denied cheating workers; his lawyer said pressure on buyers coerced the settlement and that Chinese supervisors, not the factories, had withheld wages. The *[Los Angeles Times](/organizations/los-angeles-times)* reported that Labor sought $20 million from American International Knitters, identified as Tan’s company, and that the firm pleaded no contest to falsifying an overtime document and paid a $500,000 fine. Levi Strauss & Co. dropped Tan while keeping five other Saipan plants. The GAO noted citations of a number of factories and three February 1999 class actions against major U.S. retailers; brands the *Times* listed on the island included Levi’s, the Gap, [Liz Claiborne](/people/liz-claiborne), and Eddie Bauer.

Lobbying to keep immigration and the wage under local control was paid mainly by the commonwealth. The *Los Angeles Times* reported that since 1995 Jack Abramoff and two firms had collected more than $7.7 million from that government, helping block a rise to the federal $5.15 minimum. [Tom DeLay](/people/tom-delay) led House opposition; Representative [George Miller](/people/george-miller) asked for an investigation. Fitial, whom *Mother Jones* called a former garment executive, said that after the Senate in 2000 passed a bill to phase in federal immigration law, he asked Resources chairman Don Young not to report it, and that Young replied, “I think I can arrange that.” The bill was not revived. As speaker, Fitial urged Governor Pedro P. Tenorio to restore Abramoff’s Preston Gates contract, writing on June 30, 2000, that the commonwealth needed the firm “to help save our economy.” Tenorio then signed a contract at $100,000 a month. Fitial denied that federal project money had been traded for the votes that made him speaker.

### Insurance, banking, and other businesses

Banking is the private role local reporting documented in detail. By spring 2002 Fitial was chairman, president, and chief executive of the Bank of Saipan, a board that also included Tan group directors and members of Guam’s Calvo family. On April 26 an indictment charged former chairman Tomas B. Aldan and three alleged co-conspirators with wire fraud and conspiracy over about $6.6 million. Acting Commerce Secretary and banking commissioner Fermin M. Atalig served Fitial with a freeze on withdrawals, and the Attorney General’s office asked the Superior Court for a receiver, saying the bank was unsound and depositors were in danger of fraud. About $48 million was on deposit, nearly $16 million of it commonwealth money, of which only $8 million was backed by Treasury securities—a violation, the petition said, of the Government Deposit Safety Act.

Fitial resigned on May 1, 2002, and declined to comment. Former speaker Jose R. Lifoifoi left the same week, and Jerry Tan and George Chiu had resigned a day earlier on advice of Tan Holdings counsel Steven Pixley, who said Fitial’s exit was his own decision. Directors who stayed included former Guam governor Paul M. Calvo and David J. Lujan. Court-appointed receiver Randall T. Fennell later alleged that letters Fitial signed, telling public land and retirement funds that nearly $14 million was secure, were fraudulent, and that the board, Fitial in particular, knew of a fraud tied to the First International Bank of Grenada. Those were accusations in civil litigation, not a reported criminal judgment against Fitial.

## Legislative career

### Constitutional convention and House service

Fitial entered the organization of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands as a Saipan delegate to the 1976 constitutional convention that drafted the commonwealth constitution. University of Hawaiʻi journals identify him as chairman of the Committee on Finance, Local Government and Other Matters, which reported on local government, revenue and taxation, and related questions.

He later served in the Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives. The National Governors Association states that he was elected to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 12th, and 14th Houses and that the ranking offices he held across those terms included minority leader, vice speaker, and speaker. By June 23, 1982, he was speaker of the Third Northern Marianas Commonwealth Legislature: the governor's transmittal of Public Law 3-16, a minimum-wage amendment, was addressed to him as speaker. On January 9, 1984, he called the Fourth Legislature to order in the House chamber at Susupe and was nominated to continue as speaker. A secret ballot gave Vicente M. Sablan eight votes and Fitial seven. The Democratic caucus had put Sablan's name forward, and later in the same sitting a member announced that the minority had selected Fitial as minority leader. The roll listed him in Election District No. 3.

He was still a member of that House when, on February 13, 1985, President [Ronald Reagan](/people/ronald-reagan) announced that Fitial would be appointed chairman of the Northern Mariana Islands Commission on Federal Laws, succeeding James A. Joseph. Section 504 of the Covenant, approved as Public Law 94-241 on March 24, 1976, instructed the commission to survey the laws of the United States and to recommend to Congress which laws not then applicable to the Northern Mariana Islands should be made applicable, and which applicable laws should be made inapplicable, and to what extent and in what manner. In August 1985 the commission, with Fitial as chairman and Lieutenant Governor Pedro A. Tenorio as vice chairman, sent Congress its second interim report, *Welcoming America's Newest Commonwealth*. The transmittal called it comprehensive and possibly final in practice, but interim because the end of the trusteeship over the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was not yet dated. Proposed implementing legislation was included.

The Fifth House is one of the terms in the governors association biography. Jose R. Lifoifoi was speaker of that legislature, and Fitial later described him as "a great asset to the leadership of the 3rd and 5th Northern Marianas Commonwealth Legislatures." The same account identified both men as Carolinian, or Refaluwasch, figures in the Territorial Party, which it described as the body later known as the [Republican Party](/organizations/republican-party).

### Speakerships and the Covenant Party

Fitial returned with the Twelfth Legislature. On January 10, 2000, he presided as speaker pro tempore at the organizational session in the House chamber on Capitol Hill and was elected speaker over Heinz S. Hofschneider, ten votes to eight. The same division elected Alejo M. Mendiola Jr. of Rota vice speaker over Diego T. Benavente.

In 2001 he left the Republican Party. Eloy Inos, who later described himself as the Covenant Party's titular head, said the party was established on March 24, 2001, so the date would coincide with Covenant Day, the anniversary of President [Gerald Ford](/people/gerald-ford)'s signing of the statute that enacted the Covenant, and he identified Fitial as the founder. The *Marianas Variety* later reported that Fitial left [the Republicans](/organizations/the-republicans) that year to form the party and run for governor. He was not a member of the Thirteenth House. That House adopted its rules on January 14, 2002, in a resolution certified by Hofschneider as speaker, ending Fitial's tenure as speaker of the Twelfth.

He returned in the November 2003 legislative election. Certified results for Election District 3 record 1,096 votes for him in the district and 33 absentee votes, a total of 1,129. The Fourteenth House met on January 12, 2004, with Hofschneider as speaker pro tempore. Timothy P. Villagomez nominated Fitial and Jesus T. Attao nominated Hofschneider; ten members voted for Fitial and eight for Hofschneider. The same ten-to-eight alignment then elected Villagomez vice speaker over David M. Apatang and Oscar M. Babauta floor leader over Attao. The journal places Fitial in Election Precinct III, covering Saipan and the Northern Islands.

Fitial told the House that other aims depended on reversing the economic decline, called the Covenant the economy's foundation, and said it had to be defended from what he termed neo-colonialists in Washington, D.C. He urged faster licensing, tax incentives for less labor-intensive industries, public-private marketing to investors, and work with Congress on federal aid, and he thanked Covenant Party officers, including chairman Plasido Tagabuel and vice chairman Gregorio "Kachuma" Camacho. In February 2004 he presided over a debate on capital-improvement money tied to Section 702 of the Covenant. He said he shared the concern that the House should still approve spending when those funds were handled as grants rather than as covenant appropriations, and he asked the Committee on Federal and Foreign Relations to look at restoring that practice.

## Campaigns for governor

### The 2001 and 2005 elections

Fitial left the Republican Party, which he had chaired, and formed the Covenant Party to run for governor of the Northern Mariana Islands in 2001, with Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos. On November 3 the Commonwealth Election Commission’s unofficial tally, reported by the *Saipan Tribune*, gave Republicans Juan N. Babauta and Diego T. Benavente 5,194 votes, about 42.8 percent of 12,124 ballots and 2,231 ahead of Fitial and Inos, who had 2,963 (24.4 percent). Democrats Jesse Borja and Brigid Ichihara received 2,117 (17.5 percent), and [Reform Party](/organizations/reform-party) candidates Froilan Tenorio and Dave C. Sablan 1,368 (11.3 percent). About 78 percent of 15,710 registered voters cast ballots, the lowest turnout officials could recall, which they tied partly to heavy rain. Fitial conceded and offered to help on economic recovery.

He was speaker of the [House of Representatives](/organizations/house-of-representatives) when he ran again on November 5, 2005, with vice speaker Timothy P. Villagomez. The other tickets were incumbents Babauta and Benavente; Tenorio, who had used the Reform label in 2001 and then returned to the Democrats, with educator Antonio A. Santos; and independents Heinz S. Hofschneider and David M. Apatang, both representatives and, in Hofschneider’s case, a former Republican. The campaign turned on a weakening garment industry, airline cuts threatening tourism, power outages, a utility fuel surcharge, tax rebates, and spending. At a September 15 bar-association forum that only the Babauta and Fitial tickets attended, Babauta named money the public schools had requested, solid-waste facilities on Rota and Tinian, and tourism, and asked for another term to continue work begun after the deficit he said he inherited. Fitial named an economic plan, an end to the fuel surcharge, and a balanced budget, and said he could find the money and add a million tourists in a year. Hofschneider, who did not appear, had described a legislator’s priorities as public safety, health and welfare, and education.

A plurality was enough. The commission’s published canvass listed 3,766 votes (27.95 percent) for Fitial and Villagomez, 3,682 (27.33 percent) for Hofschneider and Apatang, 3,584 (26.60 percent) for Babauta and Benavente, and 2,440 (18.11 percent) for Tenorio and Santos, out of 13,472—84 votes over Hofschneider. *Marianas Variety* later described the same edge as 84 ballots on about 28 percent of the vote. The *Saipan Tribune*’s account of the count after absentee ballots was slightly higher: 3,809 to 3,710, a 99-vote lead, with Babauta and Benavente at 3,610 and Tenorio and Santos at 2,442.

### The 2009 election and runoff

Voters then required a majority. House Legislative Initiative 15-16, ratified in 2007 with about 73 percent support, amended the constitution so that if no gubernatorial ticket received more than half the votes cast and counted, the top two would meet in a runoff fourteen days after certification. Public Law 16-43, signed by Fitial on July 24, 2009, set those procedures, including certification within ten days, in time for the November 7 election.

Villagomez was no longer the running mate. After a federal jury convicted him, he resigned as lieutenant governor. Finance Secretary Eloy S. Inos, already Fitial’s announced partner for November, was nominated to the vacancy and confirmed by the Senate on May 1, 2009, with all nine members voting yes. Hofschneider, the Republican nominee, ran with House speaker Arnold I. Palacios. Independents Juan Pan Tenorio Guerrero and Joseph James Norita Camacho, and Ramon Santos Deleon Guerrero and David Muna Borja, also ran. In August, Guerrero called the government mismanaged, citing a shortage of doctors and stray animals as problems agencies should already have solved.

The certified first round was Hofschneider and Palacios 4,900, Fitial and Inos 4,892, Guerrero and Camacho 2,643, and Deleon Guerrero and Borja 1,101. The eight-vote lead, and the failure of any ticket to reach a majority, produced the commonwealth’s first gubernatorial runoff. Republicans otherwise dominated that weekend’s legislative contests.

The runoff was Monday, November 23, and was hand-counted because the machines were not programmed for a single race. Election night left Fitial and Inos ahead 6,313 to 5,812. Of 930 absentee ballots returned, 210 were spoiled; of the 720 counted, Hofschneider and Palacios took 428 and Fitial and Inos 297. Certified totals were 6,610 to 6,240, a margin of 370. An election law moving the next regular poll to 2014, an even-numbered United States congressional year, meant a five-year term. *Marianas Variety* noted that Fitial was the first governor re-elected since Pedro P. Tenorio in 1985 and the first since Froilan Tenorio in 1993 to win a majority. He called for unity and said he would keep asking the United States to let the commonwealth enforce its own labor and investment laws; Inos said the work ahead was rebuilding tourism.

## First term as governor

### Economy, budget, and utilities

Fitial’s term began on January 9, 2006. A private family oath was taken the night before, and a public ceremony that afternoon installed Timothy P. Villagomez as lieutenant governor.

The Northern Mariana Islands economy, on islands north of Guam, was losing garment manufacturing. Annual sales exceeded $1 billion in fiscal years 1998 through 2000, then factories closed after textile quotas ended in January 2005. On June 22, 2008, trade adviser Richard Pierce called the industry a “free fall”: 1,751 jobs remained, against about 16,000 at the peak, and user fees had fallen from more than $26 million in 2005 to about $13 million in 2007, with fiscal 2008 near $7 million. He blamed federal minimum-wage increases and higher power, shipping, and materials costs, and dated the slide to 2003 rather than only to the end of [World Trade Organization](/organizations/world-trade-organization) quotas. The last factory ran into February 2009. Fiscal 2009 sales were $13 million, against $531 million in fiscal 2006, and the last user-fee receipt was $746.13. Tourism, down on fewer flights and the global downturn, was the remaining main industry.

The Government Accountability Office found noncitizen workers down from about 35,000 in 2000 to about 28,000 in 2005, and 18,942 documented foreign workers by June 2008. Unemployment rose from 5.1 percent to 8.3 percent in 2005, and the poverty rate from 46 percent in 1999 to 53.5 percent in 2004. The administration called that GDP work “inadequate” and “faulty” and asked GAO not to publish a projection of serious harm. GAO said it had shown a range of implementation outcomes, not a prediction that the statute would cause collapse, and that the losses predated the law. The commonwealth later alleged that tax revenue fell about 35 percent from 2005 to 2007.

On June 19, 2008, utility director Antonio S. Muna and Fitial signed an Aggreko contract for up to 10 megawatts of rented diesel power for 52 weeks, at five cents per kilowatt-hour plus a $336,000 advance and a $672,000 deposit. Critic Greg Cruz questioned renting generation while repairs lagged and recalled a rejected 2006 bid. He declared an emergency in August and extended it, including 31 days by Executive Order 2008-17, keeping up to 15 megawatts of rented power online and waiving ordinary contract review so permit delays would not renew blackouts. An August outage delayed airport flights, and only two of eight engines were running at Power Plant 1. Speaker Arnold I. Palacios said the crisis was “wreaking havoc on our economy” and later said emergency reports did not explain suspended procurement or spending. Press secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said the declarations were necessary, some forced by a statute that had required below-cost power rates.

### Immigration federalization

Local permits, not federal immigration law, had governed foreign workers. The complaint put the population near 60,000, about half of them U.S. citizens, with roughly 24,000 foreign workers and relatives, about two-thirds of the labor force. Title VII of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, Public Law 110-229, applied federal immigration law on November 28, 2009, replaced local admission and removal rules, and created a transition program through December 31, 2014.

Fitial sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on September 12, 2008, arguing that federal control would expel foreign workers and wreck the economy, breach the Covenant’s self-government guarantee, and was unconstitutional for lack of adequate representation in Congress. The Filipino Contract Workers Association, the United Workers Movement NMI, and the United Filipino Organization called the case a waste of money. Delegate candidate Juan Tudela Lizama said the statute did not fit the Covenant but still opposed the suit, blaming the absence of dialogue with Washington.

On November 23, 2009, Judge Paul L. Friedman dismissed the statutory counts for failure to state a claim and denied an injunction against the law as moot. The November 25 opinion found standing, ripeness, and authority to sue, but held that Covenant section 503 unambiguously lets Congress apply federal immigration and naturalization laws after the trusteeship. Using *United States ex rel. Richards v. De Leon Guerrero*, he wrote that border security, [foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs), and defense outweighed labor effects, which did not make the statute a labor law, and that the commonwealth “cannot rely on the Covenant to ensure” federal laws never touch local affairs. The same day he preliminarily enjoined the [Department of Homeland Security](/organizations/department-of-homeland-security)’s October 27, 2009, interim transitional-worker rule for skipping notice and comment. That order did not delay the November 28 transfer of immigration authority.

### The Villagomez case and the lieutenant governorship

In August 2008 a federal indictment charged Villagomez, former commerce secretary James A. Santos, and Joaquina V. Santos, Villagomez’s sister, over CUC purchases of the chemical Rydlyme. Representative Tina Sablan demanded a resignation; a House resolution to investigate possible impeachment failed, and James Santos left office. On April 24, 2009, a jury in the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands convicted all three. The scheme was excessive buying, at a 400 percent markup, from companies the couple owned, running about ten years from Villagomez’s tenure as CUC director through 2007, when as lieutenant governor he had de facto control of the utility.

He resigned that weekend, then the highest-ranking commonwealth official convicted of a crime. Fitial called it one of Villagomez’s hardest decisions and a final official act. The constitution requires Senate confirmation of a successor and bars a felon from either office without a full pardon. On August 5, 2009, Chief Judge Alex R. Munson sentenced Villagomez to seven years and three months and each of the Santoses to six years and six months, with $346,125 in joint restitution to CUC. He said a public trust had been betrayed and that the loss hit a utility already in blackouts. The defendants said they would appeal.

Fitial nominated finance secretary Eloy S. Inos, his running mate for November. With no legislator opposed, the Senate confirmed him on May 1, 2009, and Fitial swore him in that day as the first unelected lieutenant governor. Inos called the vacancy difficult but constitutionally required, and listed economic survival, a permanent attorney general, and the Retirement Fund as priorities. Senate President Pete P. Reyes said he had never seen such support for an appointment.

## Second term and party realignment

### Return to the Republican Party

Fitial and Lieutenant Governor Eloy S. Inos were sworn in for a second term on January 11, 2010, at the Saipan World Resort in Susupe, with Superior Court Associate Judge Perry Inos administering the oath. The term was five years, not four. Voters in November 2009 ratified Senate Legislative Initiative 16-11, 6,160 to 4,634, amending the Northern Mariana Islands Constitution so regular general elections would fall only in even-numbered years, alongside the election of the commonwealth’s congressional delegate. The election commission’s voter-education materials said the governor chosen in 2009 would serve one five-year term to make that transition, and Fitial’s term was scheduled to end in January 2015.

He had left the Republican Party in 2001 to found the Covenant Party. In January 2011 he rejoined the Republicans; Inos, the Covenant Party’s titular head, did not. Inos said that March that the party remained intact and that only a few members had left, and *Marianas Variety* noted that the governor and lieutenant governor then belonged to different parties for the first time. In July 2011 the Republican Party, under newly elected president and former governor Juan N. Babauta, accepted about 1,000 Covenant members despite objections that its executive committee had not reviewed the applications. Fitial also recruited incumbents; House Vice Speaker Felicidad Ogumoro and others switched, while other Covenant legislators did not. Inos and much of the party stayed separate through the 2012 elections. The Covenant Party was dissolved only after Fitial left office. On September 18, 2013, in Garapan, members backed Inos’s return to the Republicans and agreed to follow him, clearing a 2014 ticket with Senate President Ralph Torres.

### Contracts, appointments, and legislative conflict

In October 2010 the administration sole-sourced management of grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Commerce Secretary Michael Ada, whom Fitial had put in charge of the grants, resigned on October 8; on October 12 a $392,406, 18-month contract (No. 525276-OC) was approved for Integrated Professional Services, a firm Ada partly owned that was licensed only on October 14 and then advanced $78,418 from ARRA administrative funds. Fitial said Ada alone had the knowledge to keep the grants in compliance and that bidding would have left the program without a lead. A July 14, 2011 report by the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General, prepared with the CNMI Office of the Public Auditor, found evidence suggesting violations of post-employment and private-gain ethics rules and of procurement rules under which a noncompliant contract is null and void. Federal prosecutors in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands declined the case.

The larger contract was for power. On March 27, 2012, Fitial and Donald R. Kurz, president of Delaware-based Saipan Development LLC, signed a power-plant development agreement that Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham approved as to form. On August 3, 2012, Fitial and Buckingham signed a 25-year power purchase agreement for a diesel plant on Saipan, with the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation obliged to buy the electricity, at a reported $190.8 million and without competitive bidding. Fitial had declared a disaster emergency over the utility’s power, water, and wastewater service—citing, among other things, the lack of a board of directors—and claimed he could suspend its procurement rules. Rep. Janet U. Maratita sued, later joined by the Senate and Sen. Ray Yumul. On February 4, 2014, Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman held that Fitial could declare an emergency but could not suspend those regulations, and declared the purchase agreement void from the outset and the development agreement invalid. A later order denied him qualified immunity and treated the contract’s obligations as public debt requiring legislative authorization.

Appointments were a separate conflict. After Ray Mafnas was limited to corrections in 2012, brothers Ambrosio and Aniceto Ogumoro alternated as acting police commissioner on successive 90-day appointments through at least November. The 2013 impeachment articles charged Fitial with failing to make timely nominations, for Senate confirmation, to vacancies including a Supreme Court justice and the police commissioner. He also asked Department of Public Lands Secretary Oscar M. Babauta and Public Works Secretary Martin C. Sablan to resign after they stayed with the Covenant Party and, with Inos, endorsed Delegate [Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan](/people/gregorio-sablan); both resigned.

The disputes produced a first, unsuccessful impeachment. House Resolution 17-111, principally authored by Rep. Joseph Deleon Guerrero, alleged 16 counts of felony, corruption, and neglect of duty. On October 17, 2012, the House voted 9–10, short of the 14 votes required in the 20-member chamber, and Speaker Eli Cabrera dissolved the special committee. Fitial said he had done nothing warranting impeachment. Days later, in the November 6 legislative elections, voters defeated most of his House allies and returned a chamber prepared to renew the charges.

## Impeachment and resignation

### The articles and the House votes

The first move to impeach Governor Benigno R. Fitial failed while his allies still led the 17th Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives. On October 17, 2012, House Resolution 17-111, containing 16 allegations of felony, corruption, and neglect of duty, received 9 yes votes, 10 no votes, and one absence. The Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands allows the House to initiate impeachment only by two-thirds of its members, and the Senate to convict only after a hearing and only by two-thirds. The governor and lieutenant governor are impeachable for treason, commission of a felony, corruption, or neglect of duty. In the 20-member House, 14 votes were required. Minority leader Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero, the resolution’s author, called the outcome an “ultimate cover up.” Speaker Eli D. Cabrera voted no, and Representative Froilan Tenorio was absent for medical reasons. On November 6, 2012, voters defeated nearly all candidates aligned with Fitial, and most pro-impeachment candidates won.

On January 22, 2013, Deleon Guerrero and 15 co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 18-2, impeaching “Benigno Repeki Fitial” for “commission of a felony, corruption and neglect.” The House voted 19–0, with one member excused, only to open proceedings, and referred the resolution to a special committee chaired by Antonio P. Sablan. Felicidad T. Ogumoro and Teresita A. Santos, who later opposed the charges, were on the committee.

The House voted article by article on February 11 and 12. On February 11 it adopted Articles 1 through 12 and Article 16. Twelve passed 16–4. Minority Floor Leader George N. Camacho abstained on one, because his brother was the delegate candidate Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham had hosted at the governor’s residence in 2010, and that article passed 16–3. The no votes were Camacho, Ogumoro, and Richard B. Seman, Republicans from Saipan, and Santos of Rota. The *Saipan Tribune* reported charges for the unauthorized early-morning release, in January 2010 and days before Fitial’s second-term oath, of a federal inmate to massage him at home; a sole-source $190.8 million power agreement; a sole-source American Recovery and Reinvestment Act management contract worth almost $400,000, reported in 2012 at $392,406; failure to remove Buckingham over federal and local election-law violations; a conspiracy to shield him, by then described as a fugitive, from a penal summons; and delay in naming Civil Service Commission members. The massage episode alone was the subject of five articles.

The four allies filed an eight-page objection. They challenged reuse of the previous House’s evidence and asked that Representative Janet U. Maratita be recused from the power-contract article because she had sued as a taxpayer over the agreement with Saipan Development LLC. Maratita said she had no financial stake in that suit. On the massage count, the minority said the former corrections commissioner had acted on her own. Fitial’s account was that he learned of the masseuse’s incarceration on or about January 8, 2010, only when he tried to reach her, and that only she could relieve severe back pain. House leaders said he instigated the release and benefited from it. Former governor Froilan Tenorio called the effort a “misguided use of a raw political power” and a “political vendetta,” noting that Fitial had not been indicted. *Marianas Variety* reported his claims that the massage served Fitial as governor, that many counts described ordinary government work, and that nothing showed he gained from the Saipan Development contract signed on August 3, the day officers escorted Buckingham to Francisco Ada/Saipan International Airport.

On February 12 the House adopted Articles 13, 14, 15, 17, and 18: neglect of duty for failing to nominate, respectively, Public Utilities Commission members, a Supreme Court justice, a public-safety commissioner, a public-lands secretary, and a public-works secretary. Representative Roman C. Benavente abstained on the Supreme Court article. The same four Republicans voted no on nearly every article, but each of the 18 still exceeded 14 votes. The House then adopted Resolution 18-2, House Draft 1; the last article passed at 11:28 p.m. The *Saipan Tribune* called Fitial the first governor in the CNMI, and in any other U.S. insular area, to be impeached, after headlining the previous day as a first for any U.S. territory. Speaker Deleon Guerrero called the Senate trial an “uphill battle.” Ogumoro said she was unconvinced that removal was warranted. At least six of nine senators had to convict on any article, and trial was set for March 7.

### Resignation and succession

Fitial left office before that trial. On February 20, 2013, the day after he was summoned to answer the articles, he gave Lieutenant Governor Eloy S. Inos a resignation letter at 9:40 a.m. It took effect at 10 a.m. Press secretary Angel Demapan carried copies to Speaker Deleon Guerrero and Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider.

*Marianas Variety* quoted the letter: Fitial had served since January 2006, and “My personal health and the best interests of the commonwealth have led me to this decision,” under Article III, Section 7, from the office to which he was elected in November 2009. Radio New Zealand reported that the letter did not mention impeachment. A statement released the same day did. Fitial wrote that the proceedings kept him and the Legislature from the Commonwealth’s problems, that he was “prepared to present an aggressive defense,” and that “None of the allegations in the House report is an impeachable offense.” He said he was also resigning because he was 67 and in poor health, and that he wanted time with his wife, Josie, and their family and medical care on the U.S. mainland. The *Saipan Tribune* called the resignation the first by a sitting CNMI governor.

Article III, Section 7 provides that on a governor’s resignation the lieutenant governor becomes governor and the Senate president becomes lieutenant governor. Shortly after 2 p.m. at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe, Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro swore in Inos, a former finance secretary, and Presiding Judge Robert Naraja swore in Hofschneider. Inos said the letter nearly knocked him from his chair and that Fitial would have no place in the new administration. Hofschneider convened the Senate before his own oath, accepted the resignation, and canceled the March 7 trial. Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan thanked Fitial for avoiding a long trial. Deleon Guerrero said the impeachment was over; Vice Speaker Francisco S. Dela Cruz said the articles still had merit. The *Saipan Tribune* reported Inos as the first CNMI governor from Rota and Hofschneider as the first lieutenant governor from Tinian.

## Conviction, commutation, and later life

### Plea and sentence

In May 2014 the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands charged former governor Benigno R. Fitial through George L. Hasselback, legal counsel to the Office of the Public Auditor, acting as special prosecutor. On May 13, 2015, Fitial, then 69, pleaded guilty before Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman to misconduct in public office, a misdemeanor, and conspiracy to commit theft of services, a felony, the first conviction of a Commonwealth chief executive. He appeared by teleconference from Makati, in the Philippines, where he was under medical care, using the federal courthouse video link in Garapan; Wiseman let him remain seated, with his wife, Josefina, beside him.

The misconduct count, dismissed earlier and reinstated in the plea, concerned January 8, 2010, when Fitial conspired with corrections and public-safety personnel to take a female Chinese masseuse from the Susupe jail at night so she could massage him at home. She was a federal prisoner held for the U.S. Marshals Service on human-smuggling charges; Wiseman said Fitial claimed “agonizing pain” and described the release as ordered on the eve of inauguration. The felony concerned August 3 or 4, 2012, when he conspired to give then-Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham an armed escort of public employees, vehicles, and funds at Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport so Buckingham could avoid a judicial summons, services he admitted were worth at least $250 and less than $20,000. The government dismissed the other three counts—two of misconduct in public office and one of theft of services—with no agreed sentence. Stephen Nutting said Fitial wanted to spare his family a trial; Hasselback, Chief Prosecutor Leonardo Rapadas, and Attorney General Edward Manibusan described the plea as proof that the law reached the highest office. Buckingham was convicted separately; Marianas Variety reported a sentence from Associate Judge Kenneth L. Govendo of three and a half years, all suspended, a $14,000 fine taken from bail, and a 20-year ban on CNMI government employment.

The misdemeanor carried up to one year and a $1,000 fine, and the felony up to five years and $5,000. Hasselback asked for two years with no parole and a 10-year employment ban, Rapadas for more than a year consecutive to any conspiracy term, and Nutting for a fully suspended sentence, citing Fitial’s record, his return to face the case, and what counsel called diabetes and physical therapy. On June 24, 2015, Wiseman imposed five years on the felony, all suspended except one year, and one year on the misdemeanor, all suspended except 30 concurrent days, plus fines of $5,000 and $1,000. Fitial was to report to the Department of Corrections by July 6, then serve one year of probation, and was permanently barred from direct or indirect CNMI government employment; a June 26 order added a $100 assessment and left restitution open. Wiseman called the crimes a “flagrant display of abuse of authority” and “blatant arrogance,” said the original 13 charges suggested “a culture of ethical failure,” and treated prison as deterrence while noting age, health, the plea, and public service; Fitial asked forgiveness “for breaking the law,” and Nutting said the defense was “very extremely disappointed.”

### Commutation and subsequent years

Fitial applied for a pardon, and around June 22 Governor Eloy S. Inos asked the Board of Parole for advice, later saying he was not bound by it. On June 30 the board unanimously recommended commutation and unanimously opposed an absolute pardon. On July 5, 2015, the day before the reporting date, Inos signed an Article III clemency order that removed all jail time, including the suspended term, in Criminal Case No. 14-0051 and left every other condition in place. He called the choice difficult, invoked compassion and Fitial’s service in the Covenant, the legislature, and the governorship, and said he acted because of Fitial’s health “and for no other reason.”

Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero said he did not support the order but respected it. Former lawmaker Tina Sablan called it “a serious blow” to public trust. Glen Hunter withdrew a draft recall against Inos, telling RNZ he would have proceeded only for a full pardon and that many residents opposed special treatment. Rapadas said clemency was lawful discretion and that “Fitial is now a convicted criminal”; Hasselback said Inos had “substituted his judgment for that of the judge,” and Nutting said Inos deserved no criticism.

Fitial paid the $6,000 fine and $100 assessment on August 18, 2015, and Wiseman later accepted counsel’s agreement requiring $2,000 in restitution to the government within 15 days. He served no jail time and by the end of 2015 was back in the Philippines for medical rehabilitation. The felony removed him from the voter rolls, and he did not vote in 2016; on August 6, 2018, after election officials said the sentence terms were complete, he re-registered in Precinct 3 with his wife and endorsed the Republican ticket of Governor Ralph Torres and Senate President Arnold Palacios. In March 2021 he supported Mayor David M. Apatang’s nomination of Danny I. Aquino Jr. to the Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council. In September 2022 he and former governor Juan N. Babauta said Torres had left conservative Republican principles, and Fitial backed the independent Palacios–Apatang ticket.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/benigno-fitial