By Tim Rohr
In writing my book "Orchestrated" (a working title) - a record of the unbelievable drama that unfolded in this archdiocese a decade ago, I found myself stuck on what for now is the tenth chapter. It keeps getting longer and longer. In fact, it is already almost as long as the rest of the book put together. I'll fix it, probably by breaking it up into smaller chapters, but there is a reason it is so long.
More than anything else that happened in those years - and as we all remember, some pretty horrific stuff happened - the tenth chapter, the Neocat conspiracy to steal "The Yona Property," the four lots which made up what came to be the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, once the theft was outed, exposed the worst of the worst of the Neocat leadership and just how deep they had sunk their tentacles into various seats of power, from the local church, to the Vatican, and even into the Government of Guam.
In an April 4, 2016, post titled THE CONTINUING SAD DEMISE OF ONCE RESPECTED PEOPLE, I laid out a most perplexing drama. It's probably the least known drama in this whole sad story about what I euphemistically call "The Fall of the House of Apuron," and it is "least known" because this part of the story had only one protagonist, and the drama was fought mostly on paper, and eventually court filings, and not on the streets of Hagatna with crowds and big signs, as most of this fight was fought.
The lone protagonist was Robert "Bob" Klitzkie (may he rest in peace). And truly, it was a battle only Bob was equipped to fight, because it really needed not just a lawyer of Bob's caliber, but one committed to truth, not just expediency.
And that was Bob. Moreover, Bob wasn't just going up against Apuron and the Neocats - the usual suspects- his fight on this matter took him into the ring with the then-Director of the Department of Land Management, the then-Attorney General, a mysterious "Counsel for the title holder," and ultimately before the bench in the Superior Court of Guam.
Bob's fight began on November 29, 2015, when he saw a doctored certificate of title for The Yona Property printed on the front page of the Umatuna, and it ended on February 27, 2017, when the Superior Court of Guam ruled in his favor.
The fight involved thousands of words and hundreds of hours. I know, because I was by his side the whole time, not just as a supporter, but as someone - at the time - deeply caught up in the ugly lies relative to this stupid drama.
Apuron and the Neocats had publicly accused me of conspiring with a Chinese gambling interest to wrestle The Yona Property away from the church and turn the place into a casino. Really. That's what Apuron, at least through his proxies (since by then he was already in hiding), had said.
The aforesaid post of April 4, 2016, will provide a summary of most of the details regarding this terrible part of the story, and, of course, the book will expound on this matter in depth (even if it's boring). But for now, I just want to zero in on a piece of this drama that no one, not even Bob Klitzkie, has yet brought to light.
To set the stage, here is a short summary of events:
Nov. 22, 2011. Apuron quietly records a document with the Guam Department of Land Management titled "Declaration of Deed Restriction." He "quietly" records it because he does not have the required approval of the archdiocese finance council, and, due to the value of the property ($75 million), the approval of the Vatican. Apuron is also acting against his legal counsel, the late Edward Terlaje, who warned against filing the document.
Jan. 11, 2012. Apuron fires "en masse" four of the five members of the archdiocesan finance council for wanting to discuss the proposed transfer of The Yona Property to RMS, even though the four members have no idea that Apuron had already filed the papers two months earlier, on Nov. 22, 2011. The fifth member of the finance council, Msgr. David C. Quitugua, a Neocat, was part of the conspiracy to alienate the property to the Neocats (RMS).
Jan. 06, 2015. After many of Guam's Catholics become increasingly vocal about Neocat abuse and questions arise about The Yona Property, someone (I don't know who) anonymously sends me a copy of the secretly recorded Declaration of Deed of Restriction. I immediately publish it on JungleWatch.
This sets into motion a tumult of activity. The CCOG, recently formed, retains a Guam real estate attorney to analyze the language of the Deed and give an opinion. Apuron and the Neocats go crazy and run everywhere including to the Vatican and a Denver law firm (a weird story in itself) to try to refute the CCOG's claims, (and eventually the legal opinion) that the secretly recorded deed alienated, conveyed, transferred, deeded the property away from the Archdiocese of Agana and into the hands of the Neocat corporation, otherwise known as RMS, that Apuron had formed several years earlier.
Oct. 27, 2015. After Apuron and the Neocats attempt to invoke the authority of the Vatican and a Denver law firm fails to shut down growing Catholic outrage over Apuron's secret property transfer, Apuron and the Neocats head to the Guam Department of Land Management and get the Deputy Registrar of Titles to produce a false certificate of title showing that Apuron is the owner of The Yona Property and that there is no other document affecting his interest in the title.
Oct. 30, 2015. The Deputy Registrar of Titles produces and signs the false certificates of title for the four lots which comprise The Yona Property. They are "false" because all four omit the critical "Declaration of Deed of Restriction" as recorded by Apuron on November 22, 2011.
Whether the Deputy Registrar created the false certificates purposely for the benefit of Apuron and the Neocats, we don't know. We may never know. But whatever the reason, Apuron and the Neocats would live to regret ever thinking up this scheme, because THIS is what woke up Mr. Klitzkie.
Klitzkie is on the move
Up to this point, Bob had been watching the pathetic drama (the Gofigan thing, the Benavente thing, the John Toves thing, etc.) in the Archdiocese of Agana unfold. He was concerned and often advised me on how to handle things, but he didn't see a way or a reason for him, a recent convert, to get involved.
But being a lawyer, a pro-tem judge, and a former lawmaker, and an all-around truth-teller, the erroneous certificate of title, printed on the front page of the Umatuna on November 29, 2015, along with a strong statement (a lie) from the then-Vicar General, David C. Quitugua, that "this" proves the ownership of the "seminary property," was the spark that lit the fuse in Mr. Bob Klitzkie.
The certificate of title, as printed on the front page of the Umatuna on November 29, 2015, was clearly "erroneous," as Klitzkie termed it in his Dec. 23, 2015, letter to Guam Department of Land Management Director Michael Borja, a letter in which Klitzkie also called the doctored title "the source of great mischief."
In other words, Klitzkie believed that, especially in the midst of the then-stressful controversy over the secretly recorded Deed, the erroneous certificate printed in the Umatuna WAS NOT A MISTAKE, but was, in fact, "the source of great mischief." The certificate published in the Umatuna failed to display the recordation of the Declaration of Deed of Restriction, which was at the center of the entire controversy.
Bob was right. But he was up against a formidable foe: another lawyer, and a ruthless one...and a Neocat. We'll get to that.
You'll have to wait for the book for the whole da*n drama, but moving forward to the main point.
Bob and Borja, the Director of Land Management, were on the same page...at first. Both the deed published in the Umatuna and its later handwritten correction were unacceptable, and, per Guam law, a correction or modification of a real property title required a judicial proceeding. In fact, the requirement for a judicial proceeding was the written opinion of the then-Attorney General herself, Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. Borja went mum for several weeks, and after Bob tried to find out what was going on, he was informed that no judicial proceeding was necessary because the AG had "worked something out" with "Counsel for the title holder."
Bob smelled a rat.
First, who was the "Counsel for the title holder?" The title holder was presumably Apuron, but who was his "Counsel?"
The legal counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana was officially Attorney Edward Terlaje. But (Edward) Terlaje, pursuant to several written communications, was adamantly opposed to the transfer of The Yona Property to the Neocats (RMS). "Counsel for the title holder" could not be Ed Terlaje, so....WHO was it?
Bob Klitzkie gives us the answer. In his letter to Borja (Director of DLM) dated March 30, 2016, Klitzkie writes:
The way that the two of you sat, with straight faces, through several choruses of ‘I’ve got to sit down with Jackie, ‘ when responding to my question about filing, knowing that there was nothing to file, was the kind of performance not seen outside the confines of Hollywood!
Jackie! No surprise.
This post is already too long. So I'll get back to you with the next part asap.





















