Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A former local assistant public defender has accused a former prosecutor, who handled juvenile cases with the Attorney General’s Office a few years ago, of misconduct by holding secret interviews with three juvenile who are alleged victims in the government case against current Territorial Correctional Facility inmate James Glenn Barlow.

In a sworn-affidavit filed with the federal court in Washington D.C. and released in court records last Friday, Leslie J. Cardin — who served as an assistant public defender in the territory from July 2011 to 2013 —  presented concerns and allegations against former assistant attorney general Terrie Bullinger.

Barlow, a former instructor at the American Samoa Community College, was accused in 2012 of, among other things, giving three boys alcohol, watching pornographic movies, and having sex with them three times. He was later convicted in 2014 and sentenced the following year to 24-years in prison.

Barlow last year filed a habeas corpus petition — first with the federal court in Honolulu and later transferred to the federal court in Washington D.C — challenging his detention in American Samoa. The petition is filed against the US Secretary of Interior who has jurisdiction over the High Court and also appoints the Chief Justice and Associate Justice.

CARDIN’S AFFIDAVIT

Cardin — currently employed by the Georgia Public Defender Council as managing attorney of the Coastal Conflict Defender Office for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit court in the state of Georgia — signed the affidavit on June 25th and filed it with the D.C. federal court on July 17th in Barlow’s complaint against the US Secretary of Interior.

Cardin said she and her colleagues with the local Public Defender’s Office represented three teenage male juveniles on underage drinking charges in juvenile court. Those proceedings occurred prior to prosecutors filing the felony criminal complaint in High Court against Barlow, who was accused of having sexual contact with the same male juveniles.

During her representation of the juveniles, Cardin said she was asked by Bullinger to speak with the boys and inquire whether they had been sexually molested by Barlow. And the boys told both Cardin and her colleagues at the PD’s Office that “nothing sexual happened” between any of them and Barlow. And this information was conveyed to Bullinger, according to the affidavit.

On two separate occasions, Bullinger and the victim-witness coordinator from the AG’s Office also spoke privately with the boys. “Bullinger told me that day that the boys had also denied any sexual conduct” by Barlow, Cardin wrote in the affidavit.

Bullinger “was relentless in interviewing the boys repeatedly and openly voiced her opinion that they were not being truthful about there being no sexual contact with Mr. Barlow,” said Cardin, who noted that Bullinger eventually extended a plea offer for the juveniles which required them to testify against Barlow at any trial in District Court for misdemeanor charges that Barlow was facing, which were DUI and furnishing alcohol to a minor.

But after the juveniles entered their pleas and were put on probation in District Court, Cardin learned the juveniles had “belatedly made” sexual misconduct allegations against Barlow and those allegations were made during interviews of the boys conducted by Bullinger and her associates before Barlow was slated for trial in District Court on the misdemeanor charges.

“These interviews were conducted without my knowledge or consent and without counsel being present,” Cardin said, and noted that she “only learned about these secret interviews after the fact from assistant attorney Blake Hanley, who prosecuted the misdemeanor case in District Court and worked with Bullinger in the AG’s Office.

Cardin notes that Bullinger, the designated juvenile prosecutor, was a “zealous advocate for the rights of juveniles, especially those who were victims of sexual or physical abuse” and her “dedication to juvenile justice was recognized by the Chief Justice, who treated Ms. Bullinger with a high level of courtesy, deference and respect.”

Cardin said Bullinger was also her neighbor and in private conversations, long before this case, Bullinger “mentioned her dislike for Mr. Barlow, who was then unknown to me.”

She claimed in the affidavit that Bullinger’s adult son had rented a room from Barlow and Bullinger suspected that Barlow was gay and had made advances towards her son. Bulllinger, was also concerned her son might be a homosexual.

“Ms. Bullinger displayed an obvious animosity towards Mr. Barlow because of these supposed encounters involving her son and expressed her opinion that he should be prosecuted for his alleged inappropriate relationships with young men,” Cardin wrote in the affidavit.

She explained that the three juveniles’ families were originally from Tonga and thus subject to American Samoa’s immigration laws, for which the Attorney General issued permits for foreigners to remain in American Samoa, provided they meet certain criteria.

“Their immigration status gave the Attorney General tremendous leverage over these boys and their families,” she said. (Samoa News points out that under local law, the Immigration Board has the authority to either grant or deny permits for foreigners to reside and work in the territory.)

“Given these facts and Ms. Bullinger’s surreptitious interviews with our clients, done without their attorney’s knowledge or consent, I have serious concerns about the truthfulness of the sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Barlow,” Cardin said.

“My doubts stem from the fact that these boys had repeatedly denied sexual contact with Mr. Barlow in prior multiple interviews with the police and members of the Attorney General’s Office,” said Cardin.

And she only learned of the juveniles’ new statements admitting to sexual contract, on the morning that Barlow was to go on trial for misdemeanor charges at the District Court. The trial was continued as the government filed felony charges in the High Court.

“Upon learning of these new inconsistent statements on that morning, I was very concerned that the juveniles may well have made these claims against Barlow — not because they are true — but because they were coerced into doing so by an influential prosecutor with strong personal bias against Mr. Barlow and his perceived sexual orientation,” Cardin wrote in the affidavit.

“The fact that the sudden, last-minute change in juveniles’ testimony took place at a secret meeting during which our clients were not allowed to have counsel present only heightened my concern,” she concluded.

Samoa News wasn’t immediately able to obtain contact information for Bullinger to get comments. More developments in this case — at the federal level — in tomorrow’s edition.