Saipan is indeed one of the most corrupt backwards places on Earth. I know because I've actually been there and got to know some of the locals and politics of the place while there.<p>To say more eloquently what bugsy was trying to express, while it is unclear if Mr. Millard did commit a crime, you must take into account that the people chasing him for supposed tax abuse are some of the most corrupt people on Earth. Much of that information is available on Wikipedia, but just read some of the websites of ex-pats and such and you will get a good idea. Thus, I would take <i>anything</i> said by <i>anyone</i> in the Saipanese government with a large grain of salt. Furthermore, even if Mr. Millard is guilty, if the Saipan government gets his money, it will be a negative outcome for everyone.
Structurally this article reads like one that has been "placed" by a PR firm. That combined with e.g.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=saipan+corruption" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?q=saipan+corruption</a><p>makes me feel like whatever the truth is, it's not exactly as described here. I'm not saying the guy hasn't done anything wrong, just that I suspect we're not getting the whole story.
I remember ComputerLand stores. Sounds like he was a hard working guy who earned his success.<p>Saipan is one of the most corrupt backwards places on earth. As a US trust territory, for many years they had slave plantations that produced clothing for chinese companies which was labelled "Made in USA". Many workers were kept under brutal conditions, raped, beaten and killed. The Saipanese are mostly incredibly lazy and loved this system as it allowed them to have houses full of slave servants and great wealth without ever having to work for it. It all collapsed a few years ago, but there's a close to 100% chance that they are the ones running the scam in this current case.<p>edit: Keep downvoting this, monkeys! I have no doubt I am one of a small handful of people on HN that has intimate experience of how Saipan works and how corrupt this place is. My post gives true insight to what is going on there. Imagine the worst fundamentalist christian ignorant half retarded hillbilly sex fiend town straight out of the movie Deliverance, but then give them dictatorial control over outsiders, a total lack of desire to work and a strong desire to dominate control and cheat others and you have Saipan. It's like a stereotypical town thought to exist in the backwoods of Arkansas, but it's real, slavery is still legal, and it's part of the US. Absolutely anything involving Saipanese officials that has a money angle for them is a total scam. Since their slave factories collapsed, they have been in desperate straits to steal what they can. I totally believe the CEOs explanation that they backdated their tax code specifically to target him, and then never served him of any real notice of it until now, after they've gotten a bunch of judgements against him in which he had no chance to represent himself because he didn't even know there was a case about this. That is exactly how they work. They are incredibly conniving and will work every system to get what they want. Typical small town american fundamentalist hillbillies, but in a pacific island trust territory. These comments apply to the people in control there. There's also the regular people who hate what has been done to their island over the years, many are ostensibly good people. It's the corrupt people in power that are the troublemakers, and dealing with them is exactly exactly like Southern Bible Thumping Fundamentalist - which the Saipanese basically are. The fundamentalist missionaries infected them with the peculiar sort of madness, entitlement, laziness and corruption that comes with that belief system. And if you had no idea about the slavery and corruption and you are downvoting this you are only proving how mentally you are exactly like them. This post tells you the truth about Saipan, a place that until just now you probably never heard of. Ignorant fools.
I also remember ComputerLand stores. Sounds like he was a hard working guy who earned his success... who then decided to use it to become a tax cheat for the rest of his life.<p>Regardless of what you think about the Northern Marianas, this guy doesn't deserve anyone's pity, he's been a tax cheat for well over 2 decades.<p>And no I don't "believe the CEO's story that he was never served", that's horseshit. He left Saipan for a reason, to continue to dodge taxes any way he could.
<i>A devotee of est, a faddish self-empowerment regimen of that era</i><p>What is <i>est</i>? Google and Wikipedia seem quite unhelpful.<p>Edit: found it. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training</a>
Ah, a blast from the past. I was reading Once Upon a Time in Computerland by Steven Levy. Not a bad book, but I wondered what happened to Millard. Now I know!