Guam - With a little less than a year left in his term, Senator Matt Rector announced he is resigning from his position in the 30th Guam Legislature. His resignation, effective Wednesday at noon, comes in the midst of two ethics complaints that had been filed against him.

The first was filed by Port Authority of Guam chairman Monte Mesa, who alleged several conflicts of interest with Rector serving simultaneously as chair of the Legislative Committee on Labor and simultaneously as president of the Guam Federation of Teachers. During an ethics meeting last week, Senator Rector agreed to move his office out of the GFT's building in Mangilao. The lawmaker was using his Senatorial budget to pay rent to the union. 

This Thursday, Rector was scheduled to appear again before the Legislature's Ethics Committee but this time for a complaint filed against him by Eloy Hara. Hara argued that Rector should not be allowed to continue to serve as Senator because he was convicted of burglary in 1983 in the state of California.

After KUAM News broke the story about the conviction, Senator Rector admitted to the crime on Facebook.

During Thursday's hearing the Legislature's Ethics Committee's legal counsel, Anthony Camacho, was scheduled to present his preliminary findings of his investigation into Hara's complaint. According to those findings a conviction of burglary was determined to be a crime of moral turpitude, which would disqualify an individual from serving public office.

Over the last several weeks law enforcement officials have been having a difficult time obtaining the documents related to Senator Rector's conviction. The Guam Police Department was eventually subpoenaed to produce any and all documents related to matter. Those documents have since been turned over, but have not been released to the public.

Rector's resignation will be discussed during the Guam Election Commission's board meeting tomorrow. GEC Executive Director John Blas says the law states that a special election must be held no less than 30 days or not more than two months after the vacancy is declared. If the declaration is made after that timeframe then the seat will remain vacant. 

If the special election is held it will cost roughly around $150,000 and according to Blas it's funding they don't have. The GEC board is scheduled to meet tomorrow at 4 in the afternoon.