Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — An employee of the LBJ Medical Hospital accused of illegally signing a parent/ guardianship consent form at the LBJ Hospital’s Surgical Clinic is being charged with one count of criminal fraud and one count of offering a false instrument for filling, both class C felonies, punishable by term of imprisonment of up to seven years, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

Togiimoana Montgomery walked into District Court Tuesday morning where she was served with a copy of the arrest warrant before she made her initial appearance before Acting Associate Justice Elvis P. Patea.

Bail for Montgomery is set at $5,000.

The court remanded Montgomery to the custody of the Territorial Correctional Facility (TCF) until she posts bond.

THE CASE

The government alleges that on July 14, 2020, a woman walked into police headquarters to file a complaint against Montgomery who pretended or impersonated her son’s biological mother and illegally signed a parent/ guardianship consent form at the LBJ Hospital Surgical Clinic to have her son scheduled for surgery.

Two senior police officers interviewed the victim in this case where she provided all the information regarding the alleged incident.

During the course of the investigation, officers discovered that the suspect in this case is the partner of the victim’s ex-husband, who is a police detective.

The victim told investigators that she and her ex-husband have shared custody of their three (3) children. On June 29, 2020, the victim received a phone call from her ex-husband who informed her that their their son is scheduled for surgery (circumcision) on July 4, 2020, but the time was unknown.

Two days before the surgery on July 2nd, the victim called her ex-husband again asking for the exact time of the surgery, but her ex-husband was guessing and said 7 or  8 a.m.

The victim told police that the reason she kept calling her ex-husband was that she wanted to make sure of the exact time of her son’s surgery. She then called the Surgical Clinic and spoke with a nurse regarding the issue. She asked the nurse about protocol/ surgical procedure regarding such surgery and what time her son’s surgery was scheduled.

When the nurse told the victim that the Surgical Clinic had not received her son’s medical file, the victim then asked the nurse to transfer her call to Medical Records, however, the line disconnected while she was on hold. She was able to reach Medical Records on her own, and told them what Surgical Clinic needed, but was told that the file was not released for the July 4th surgery, as her son was not scheduled for that day.

The victim was then transferred back to the Surgical Clinic and she spoke to a nurse there. It was during this conversation that the victim was told that the consent form for the surgery was signed by a person by the name of Togiimoana Montgomery, a.k.a Togi, the defendant in this matter.

The nurse further stated to the victim that when Montgomery signed the consent form, she (employee) asked Montgomery if she was the biological mother and she replied, “Yes, I am the mother,” and signed the form.

On Friday, July 17, investigators spoke to the nurse to whom the victim had spoken regarding the consent form that was allegedly signed by Montgomery.

The nurse confirmed to the officers that she was aware of their investigation, and according to her verbal statement said that Togiimoana and the two boys came to see Dr. Kumar for screening/ circumcision, and they were approved for the procedure and scheduled for July 4th.

The nurse further stated that Togiimoana came into the Nursing Office with paperwork for ‘her’ two boys.

At the time, when asked, Togiimoana stated the boys were hers and she was back to using her maiden name. The nurse further stated to investigators that she gave Togiimoana two consent forms to sign for the surgery to take place on Saturday, July 4th.

The nurse witnessed these consent forms signed by Togiimoana and she was the only nurse working in the Surgical Clinic. The nurse further stated that she had known Togiimoana for a long time because Togiimoana works in the X-Ray Department at the LBJ Medical Hospital so she trusted and believed her. She then went and filled out the rest of the form without asking her for identification and Togiimoana signed the consent forms as parent and bracketed “mother”.

On July 30th, investigators interviewed Montgomery regarding this matter. She was Mirandized and was willing to make a statement regarding the incident.

According to the defendant, she shared with her partner (victim’s ex-husband) that she had made an appointment at the Surgical Clinic for her own son to get circumcised and her partner asked her if she could also put his youngest son on the schedule given that the boy is staying with them for the first half of the summer.

Montgomery said she made the appointment at the Surgical Clinic and was called to bring in the boys for their physical exams before the surgery on Saturday, July 4th.

On the day of the physical exams, the defendant said that it was getting crowded at the Surgical Clinic so she kept calling her partner and he asked if she could please just register the boy (victim’s son) with her son (defendant’s son) and that he’ll be there at the hospital because traffic was getting bad. The defendant said she took the two boys to Surgical Clinic, registered them and got their vitals done.

She was then informed that the doctors wouldn’t be available until later. She had the boys with her at her office (LBJ Radiology) and at the same time she kept calling her partner to update him and if he could be there before the boys got called in to the Surgical Clinic. However, her partner kept saying okay, but he had to tend to his other kids that needed him first.

The defendant further stated that later on that day, July 4th, the doctor finally called them in and it was almost 12 p.m that she called her partner again and he begged her if she could take the boy (victim’s son) together with her son for their physical. She explained to him that she cannot sign anything until he gets there, and besides the spots for these kids were tight as there were many kids in line for the same procedure.

The defendant also told investigators that her partner didn’t want to lose the spot for his son and he asked her to sign his paperwork. Her partner further said that he would stop by and sign off again and get the papers to Medical Records.

So everything was done that day, but then the problem was her partner came later on that day and the Surgical Clinic was already closed so she told him to wait until the next day to go sign that consent form again before he went to medical records and her partner understood what needed to be done.

The defendant told officers that she was given the okay and authorized by her partner to sign for the victim’s son’s consent form (for the time being) and that he was going to make sure to sign the consent form again himself before it went in to his son’s medical records.

The defendant apologized for overstepping and that it was not her intention to stretch (abuse) her power as an LBJ employee.

On Aug. 11, 2020, defendant’s partner, police detective Filemoni Amituana’i provided a written statement stating he gave his partner, Montgomery permission to sign the consent form for his son.