American Samoa officials arrested

The lieutenant governor and a territorial senator of American Samoa were charged with fraud, bribery and obstruction in a federal indictment unsealed Monday in Washington.

The arrests of Lt. Gov. Ipulasi Sunia, 64, and Sen. Tini Lam Yuen, 56, were announced in a Justice Department release from Washington, where the grand jury had met. American Samoa is a U.S. territory without a federal court.

Lt. Gov. Ipulasi Aitofele Sunia appeared Monday before a federal magistrate, while Sen. Tini Lam Yuen surrendered to the FBI in Los Angeles and later appeared in federal court there, FBI spokesman Brandon Simpson said. Both were released on a $50,000 unsecured bond.

According to the indictments, Sunia, who was territorial treasurer at the time, and Lam Yuen engaged in a scheme to avoid a competitive bidding process by conspiring to split a large project for school furniture construction among companies they owned and a third company owned by another official.

They also allegedly conspired to create paperwork that gave the false appearance that the project was dozens of small projects beneath the $10,000 threshold requiring competitive bidding.

Over three years, contracts they shared totaled $775,000, according to the indictment.

Sunia and Lam Yuen face a maximum 20 years in prison and $500,000 in fines on the various charges if convicted.

The two officials were charged in a corruption scheme that led to the October 2005 sentencing of two former American Samoa officials. Fa'au Seumanutafa, the territory's chief procurement officer, was sentenced to 30 months in prison, with a $61,000 fine, and former Education Department Director Kerisona Sili Sataua was sentenced to eight months and ordered to pay $85,000.

Sunia's Washington-based attorney, Lanny A. Breuer, said the lieutenant governor would be vindicated in court. He said school furniture from his factory was ordered "for a fair price to benefit the American Samoan children and community." Lam Yuen's defense attorney, Roy J.D. Hall Jr., declined to comment.

Last year, Sunia professed his innocence in a letter to his family.

"I am innocent and I intend to fight the federal government as hard as is necessary to clear my name," he wrote.