An amended final campaign finance report by Ralph Torres and Vinnie Sablan shows several Commonwealth residents and businesses paid handsomely with federal funds via the Torres administration were among their biggest campaign funders.
Gary Sword of KKMP and Blue Continent Communications gave the Torres-Sablan campaign $15,000 for a September 20, 2022 “corporate mixer” fundraiser. That matches the time period Mr. Sword’s Blue Continent racked in a total of $546,276 in government contracts, according to a ledger from the Department of Finance for Fiscal Year 2022. On top of that, his KKMP Charitable Foundation received $250,000 around the same time.
According to the Torres-Sablan report – if it is to be believed – the campaign raised $291,617.00 during the campaign, and had $15,565.65 remaining in its account as of the October 24, 2023 campaign. The report violates the law, as it was filed beyond the 50 days past the election allowable under statute.
Tan Holdings was another large donor that also benefitted from Mr. Torres’ use of federal pandemic funds. According to the report two Tan subsidiaries, Take Care and Century Insurance Co. (GU) Ltd each donated $2,000 at a December 17, 2021 campaign fundraiser at the Dusit Thani Resort Guam. The time period follows the Commonwealth government’s payments to Tan-owned hotels estimated at about $30 million during the pandemic.
Calvo Enterprises president Leonard Calvo and another company executive also donated through the event. According to the DOF ledger for FY 2022, Calvo Enterprises was paid $333,855.78. Another Calvo company – Bank of Saipan – became the administrator of the controversial Torres BOOST program. The bank also was BOOSTed, along with several of its employees.
The Torres-Sablan report of the Dusit fundraiser also contains two suspect entries. The first is its payment to the Dusit for the cost of food and drinks, which is a flat $10,000.00, a billing amount difficult to arrive at after factoring customary service charges. Kandit cross checked to see whether any difference was reported in the “In-kind” section of the fundraiser report. The campaign reported $0.00 in any such contributions for the event.
Other large donors included several JoeTen companies, Bridge Capital, LLC, Charles Cepeda, Black Construction, Alex Sablan, Micronesia Renewable Energy, Keith Stewart, Paradise Holdings Inc., Perry Inos, Robert Harrell, Saipan Shipping Co. Inc., Priority Care Services, Resources Management Int’l Corp, RNV, Shayne Villanueva, The Plumeria LLC, Rene Batalones, Juan S. Tenorio, and Danny Aquino.
Several of those named above either were BOOSTed, or were beneficiaries of federally-funded local contracts.
Mr. Torres and Mr. Sablan outspent their opponents exponentially. They lost by a near statistical landslide to Arnold Palacios and David Apatang.
1 Comments
elkapitan
10/29/2023 at 2:40 PM
Intersting many of these “players”.
So when are you going to delve into that “Ldy Diane Foundation” or what ever it is called. (non profit) and look at the expenses and foreign political donations that were funneled to Ralphy’s campain. Also their payout and operating expenses and the amounts and to whom?
Bet is you will uncover much there. Also IPI and it’s subsidiaries will be in that book.