A pair of Ferragamo shoes

A personal reflection, by Troy Torres

An FBI agent five years ago sat with me at the Micronesia Mall parking lot – a place we would meet to provide him information about illegal government activity I was aware of – and started asking me questions about an ex-boyfriend’s business.

“Were you aware of what Michael was doing?” I told him he ran a bingo company.

“That’s not what I mean,” he replied, sternly this time. “Did you know he was laundering money?”

My heart fell into my bowels. No. I had no idea. And by that time, we hadn’t been together in two years.

“It was a lot of money,” the FBI agent told me.

That part was funny to me; and all of a sudden I didn’t see prison bars flash before my eyes. I never saw any of that money. In fact, I thought we were broke. Imagine my surprise in June this year, when a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that my ex boyfriend profited at least $15 million during the period of an alleged conspiracy running from 2015 to 2021.

But at the time – five years ago – I wondered what my lot in life would be like, had I been privy to that wealth. It’s a question that – five years later looking in hindsight – I’m glad I had the great fortune to have never contended.

Because, for everything I hope to believe I am today, I am no better a human being than those who had opportunity for great wealth and seized it. I want to be able to believe that I am above corruption, seeing as how I report about it with sometimes overzealous purpose. But, I’m human just like anyone else; and just like anyone else, I’m prone to error and temptation.

The reason I’m not part of that federal indictment is a confluence of events in my life that yanked me from the throes of that conspiracy, and placed me somewhere else, with some other purpose. And looking back these five years… wow. Wow, am I blessed.

Let’s rewind the clock.

The ex and I had been together for 10 years until 2016. Irreconcilable differences. What hurt the most was the division of our dogs. He took half, I took the other half. We retained respect for each other, and a friendship that allowed weekend swaps of the dogs until late 2017, when things went sour.

But before that happened, his business partner and he had a falling out over their bingo business partnership at the Guam Greyhound Park. The one permitted to the Guam Shrine Club. She hired a cop, who ran a private security business, and within hours this cop and the Tamuning Tumon precinct were kicking out my ex and all his employees from the bingo establishment. It was a dispute over the lease agreement. There was no warrant, no court order, nothing.

I was still working at the governor’s office at the time, so I went through the channels to report this clearly unconstitutional attack that robbed people of property and wages. Most people don’t know (or care), but this is the real reason I left the Calvo administration. It was my first run in with police corruption.

But, like a loyal soldier to Eddie Calvo, I kept my mouth shut.

Within a couple months, I broke up with the boyfriend I was with at the time, and all the money (that was mine) in our joint bank account went with him. I was jobless and broke. Then the drugs started in a big way.

I put the brakes on meth (somewhat) after realizing I needed a job, and after then-Sen. Dennis Rodriguez hired me to work in his office. By December 2017, he decided to run for governor. I was back in politics; this time, for the other side.

And, still, I was loyal to Eddie Calvo. Everything about the Rodriguez campaign I designed so as to complement Calvo’s popular legacy. It was strategically right, but it also assuaged my conscience (I thought).

Ray Tenorio, Calvo’s lieutenant, didn’t think so. And so, in May 2018,  he sent the police after me. And two days after release from jail, I met the FBI agent.

Among the things I told him was the bingo raid. He was very interested. Wrote down every word I said, asking me to repeat myself several times, and to slow down so he could get it all. He called and met with my ex. Then he went after his former business partner, a local real estate broker, who has since pleaded guilty to her part of the conspiracy.

I had zero idea these events would culminate in this year’s indictments. I mean, that was five years ago, and I never heard from the FBI agent about the matter since. For anyone waiting for the federal hatchet to fall on Ralph Torres, take heart. The Feds take their time.

My life went on from that interview at the basement parking lot of the Micronesia Mall in the summer of 2018. I would go on to incorporate Kandit, along with Johnnie Rosario and Carlos Pangelinan. That journey has been one hell of a ride.

We built a company on our own. We worked hard day in and day out. During that time, apparently, my ex’s fortunes exploded into constant first class travel, Louis Vuitton galore, luxury cars, Cartier jewelry, homes, condos, and wealth most people only ever will dream of seeing.

I know I often wished for a more glamorous life during those five years, especially the earlier part of those five years. To this day, we struggle financially. The difference between then and now is, I’m okay with it. In fact, most of my days are filled with absolute joy, having crossed the Rubicon of faith through a Catholic journey I’ve been on.

I also don’t want to see Michael, any of his co-defendants, or the woman who already pleaded guilty suffer in prison. I don’t know what that woman has been through in life to have behaved as she had. And as for the ex and his co-defendants, that could just as easily have been me, no matter how much I want to believe I’m above all that.

Only by Providence do I find myself unrestrained by the shackles of a federal indictment. Everything I’ve been through the past seven years took me square away from that alleged conspiracy. Sure, the path was extremely bumpy, sometimes painful, oftentimes filled with filth of my own making, but altogether away from the guilt of a scheme that allegedly took away millions of dollars from children in need of surgery.

Only by Grace am I able to state honestly – all these years later – that even if I never wear a ruby-studded ring, or stand in the middle of the Hagia Sophia, or walk around Paris. Even if I never buy a KitchenAid electric mixer, or a BMW, or ever again see the night lights of Times Square. If Madonna goes on tour and I never see her concert, or even if I can’t eat caviar while sipping bubbly before every 3 p.m. siesta. I’m good.

I don’t want the temptation. I don’t want the opportunity to offend.

I am completely blessed to own more than enough clothes that fit, and I now love those giveaway shirts that stores and brands toss around. It’s Folgers instant coffee for me when I wake up, and a cup of 76 Circle K coffee on the way to the gym. My Jeep is the only ride I need, and I’m lucky to be someone who even has a car. If I rent for the rest of my life, I just have to make sure the house has a fenced yard for my dogs. I’ve got my gym membership and Kandit. I have my family and my friends, and I treasure them. Every now and then I want to visit countries of my heritage: Palau and Japan. Often, I want to bask in the beautiful sun pouring over Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.

The only jewelry I need are my rosary and scapular around my neck, and the beaded rosary bracelet from my dearly departed friend Aggie’s funeral. And the part that’s non-negotiable: For all the days of my life I want the ability to kneel before the Lord, and in every day I can, I want to receive Him in the Eucharist.

If everything I went through the past seven years of my life was to arrest me from a dance before a federal jury to win freedom against a 1,200-year prison sentence… all because I was too dangerously close to the finer things of life exploited from children… then I never ever want to be back in a place like that.

I face enough temptation, doubt, and gray areas from which to makes choices as it is. In many ways I am a slave to my vanity and selfishness. I do not want money to be my master.

All I want is peace, joy, love, sobriety, the gym, and maybe a pair of Ferragamo shoes.