A female officer of the Guam Department of Corrections has blown the whistle on what she believes is a complicit system allowing its warden – Alan Borja – of escaping accountability for allegedly sexually harassing and assaulting female officers and detainees for years. The officer, also a reported victim of Mr. Borja, documented the crimes against her, the complaints she filed within DOC and to the Guam Police Department, her witness testimony to crimes Mr. Borja allegedly committed against others, and his alleged assault of her at DOC after she filed her complaint.
She did not speak to Kandit or any other media. Her words – and allegedly his – are contained in pages of complaints and proof. These documents were leaked to Kandit.
She filed her internal complaint – the fifth such complaint by a female against Mr. Borja – to the director of corrections, Joe Carbullido, on April 6, 2023. As of today, Mr. Borja remains the warden, on duty, and superior in command to her, other females who have complained, and female inmates and detainees.
The woman’s complaint was investigated by Guam Customs and Quarantine Agency officers, who submitted their report to Mr. Carbullido. The director issued Mr. Borja a letter of reprimand, which represents no adverse disciplinary action, except to the warden’s private personnel record. The public would have never known about this due to GovGuam’s interpretation of personnel privacy laws affecting public employees, had it not been for the leak of the documents.
The same has occurred for every previous complaint against the warden.
On May 26, 2023, two days after Typhoon Mawar, Mr. Borja allegedly assaulted the female officer in the presence of Corrections Officer II Alexis Aromin, who allegedly laughed at the incident, according to her second internal complaint to Mr. Carbullido.
Despite the complaint, the warden remains on duty.
On May 31, 2023, according to the leaked documents, the female officer wrote a criminal complaint about the assault and sexual harassment to the Guam Police Department.
Nothing has been done.
“The notorious bro, prim, pari culture of an agency is a good example of a hostile workplace to women and any other person(s) not in a certain circle,” the female officer wrote to Mr. Carbullido.
The “Sext” Messages
Mr. Borja allegedly sent unwanted sexual advances via text message to the female officer since April 26, 2021. She provided transcripts of the texts, and photos of the WhatsApp screens baring the texts to police and to Mr. Carbullido. These all are included in the leaked documents.
According to the messages, each time the warden allegedly messaged the woman texts of a sexual or romantic nature, she replied with disgust, even telling him once in an April 14, 2022 advance, “Cut ur wrist.”
From “I need a hug,” to emojis of sexual intercourse, to “I seriously want you,” to “Where u … For sure I want a kiss,” the text messages display a consistent pattern of unwanted advances.
On November 25, 2021, according to the text messages, the warden allegedly messaged, “I want to smell your neck.” The woman replied with a middle finger emoji and the command, “Stop texting me shit like that.”
He allegedly replied, “U what what!! Ur mom should’ve swallowed u.”
The text messages and complaint show the warden allegedly making demeaning comments about women, and against a “Micro,” a racial slur normally made against a person of Chuukese descent.
Assault at DOC following the complaint
On May 26, 2023, two days after Mawar, the female officer wrote a second complaint to Mr. Carbullido alleging in detail that Mr. Borja shoved her at the main facility, then walked off and laughed.
“On May 25, 2023 at 1200 hours while standing in front of the Central Control looking down at my phone, I was nudged hard on my right-side shoulder,” the female officer wrote in her complaint to Mr. Carbullido. “This motion caused me to nudge away from the doorway. I looked up to see who would have done such a physical motion and it was Warden. Present and laughing was COII Alexis D. Aromin. The Central Control Officer at the time was COI Aja A. Guevara.”
The female officer requested an external investigation into the matter. None has resulted in any disciplinary action.
The previous slaps on the wrist
According to several stories by Kandit, The Guam Daily Post, KUAM, Pacific Daily News, and Pacific News Center since 2019, Mr. Borja has been accused multiple times by multiple women of sexual harassment and assault. Each time, an internal affairs review is conducted, and findings that do not rise to disciplinary action result. He has been placed on administrative leave pending investigations for days at a time, then is allowed to return back to work.
The latest complaint against Mr. Borja led to a roundtable discussion regarding DOC operations by the agency’s legislative oversight committee, conducted by its chairman, Sen. Chris Barnett.
“Given that he’s already been the subject of previous complaint investigation, I just want to be sure that this isn’t a pattern that’s being established,” Mr. Barnett said of the complaint against the warden.
Mr. Barnett did ask the director, Mr. Carbullido, at the round table hearing about the complaint and the welfare of the female officer. The director said he could not comment about Mr. Borja because the investigation was ongoing at the time.
“The acting director stated to Sen. Barnett that he had talk (sic) with the complainant and the complainant said she was comfortable,” the woman wrote in the leaked documents. “The statement is not true. I did not state I was comfortable. I believe that comment ‘comfortable’ has given the warden the perception that it is okay to mingle around one another. It is not okay to be in the same room with the warden.”
Kandit has reached out to Mr. Carbullido to ask him why he only issued a letter of reprimand, despite the internal affairs findings, and the evidence he was provided by the complainant. We also asked him about the allegation of the agency’s complicity in covering up sexual assault and harassment alleged within his department.
Mr. Carbullido has not responded as of the publication of this story.
Next in this series: The warden’s alleged messages celebrating the death of Robert Camacho
6 Comments
Alan San Nicolas
07/10/2023 at 8:18 AM
Yanggen cheton pues un ke’chapak sa uson hao pues cha-isao. Mungnga ma gacha I otru. Fan espiha abugao miyu. ESTA DESPUES 👍
Imelda Tanapino
07/10/2023 at 8:21 PM
Historically (2015 ???), there were people in power at DOC (Tony Lamorena – currently K57 radio host) supporting/hiring DOC guards who smuggled in ice, Tabasco sauce, tobacco, smoking dope, needles and other contraband.
None of the ice smuggling DOC guards who got caught spent a day in jail. The task force who caught the ice smugglers was disbanded and discredited by GovGuam, but they did a good job nevertheless.
Tony Lamorena (K57) and GovGuam’s powerful paree paree nepostitic system took care of the DOC ice smugglers. No jail, no fine – let off scott free after they were caught smuggling ice into GovGuam’s detention facilities.
As far as anyone knows, they slunk off to wherever disgraced corrupt GovGuam employees go – probably the Philippines or Nevada. Maybe Washington state because a lot of their friends and relatives are incarcerated there.
Who knows? Who cares about the ice fuelled GovGuam/Chinese corruption?
Certainly not the Gumanian electorate, because they keep electing the same old crooks, from the same old crooked families
(name them: Cruz, Calvo, Tenerio, Leon Gurrero, San Nicholas, Toves, Tan, Chaufras, not to mention all of the Q’s. Naming the names of every corrupt GovGuam member is tiring, and would take more time than I care to commit to helping/educating the people of Guhan – after all, the last fat superintendent of education has already stolen all of the money that can be legally stolen. Perhaps shit grinning Won Pat will be able to figure out a way to steal more – who knows?
July 10, 2023
Currently, we have people in power at DOC who appear to be sexually abusive, racist and really not politically correct. As a human being you should care about this.
Remember Korean Mama San at the Blue House? Remember her local GPD assistant rapists? Korean MamaSan died in prison, but where are her GPD assistant rapists? Not incarcerated, I assure you.
Bad people do bad things on Guam and get away with it. This is a cultural thing.
As a true Gumanian, do you really give a f word?
As a true Gumanian, does your political representative smoke ice?
As true Gumanian, do you think ice is nice?
(remember, there’s $ involved in this question. )
As a true Gumanian, will you keep it bad, or try to improve it?
Imelda Tanapino
07/11/2023 at 12:02 AM
If you want to keep it bad, vote the same way you voted in 2022.
In ’22 you had a chance
to get rid of Lou.
But you
blew it.
shesaloser
07/11/2023 at 8:10 AM
Its one thing for the Warden to have that kind of behavior and it goes without saying. But her? She was still engaging him every single day. Numerous reports yet nothing came of it and she just stopped there? Didnt tell family? Other authorities? Filed charges? If she was really uncomfortable then she would’ve done more to stop his advances and not text him random shit about “get me a green shirt” Pathetic on both parties. The texts are so telling when you really read them. Some people really are able to hang on when it gives them attention.
Imelda Tanapino
07/19/2023 at 4:35 PM
Typical “blame the victim” pathetic mindset that prevails among a certain type of pathetic GovGuam minions.
Imelda Tanapino
07/19/2023 at 7:00 PM
FYI: Guam has the second highest per capita rape rate in the United States, so there’s a pretty good chance there will be a rapist standing in line next to you at K Mart or Payless.