2 to plead guilty in payment to Kealoha
STAR-ADVERTISER Roy Keiji Amemiya Jr.: He entered a deferred prosecution agreement and is free on $50, 000 bond
1 /5 STAR-ADVERTISER Roy Keiji Amemiya Jr.:
He entered a deferred prosecution agreement and is free on $50, 000 bond STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, right, has to pay back a $250, 000 settlement and is serving a seven-year sentence in a federal prison in Oregon. Katherine Kealoha, left, was convicted in 2019 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for framing her uncle for stealing a mailbox. She is serving a 13-year sentence.
2 /5 STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, right, has to pay back a $250, 000 settlement and is serving a seven-year sentence in a federal prison in Oregon. Katherine Kealoha, left, was convicted in 2019 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for framing her uncle for stealing a mailbox. She is serving a 13-year sentence.
GEORGE F. LEE / MAY 17 Former Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, left, and businessman Dennis Mi tsu naga emerge from U.S. District Count after being found not guilty of corruption.
3 /5 GEORGE F. LEE / MAY 17 Former Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, left, and businessman Dennis Mi tsu naga emerge from U.S. District Count after being found not guilty of corruption.
STAR-ADVERTISER Max John Sword 4 /5 STAR-ADVERTISER Max John Sword STAR-ADVERTISER Donna Yuk Lan Leong 5 /5 STAR-ADVERTISER Donna Yuk Lan Leong STAR-ADVERTISER Roy Keiji Amemiya Jr.: He entered a deferred prosecution agreement and is free on $50, 000 bond
STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, right, has to pay back a $250, 000 settlement and is serving a seven-year sentence in a federal prison in Oregon. Katherine Kealoha, left, was convicted in 2019 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for framing her uncle for stealing a mailbox. She is serving a 13-year sentence.
GEORGE F. LEE / MAY 17 Former Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, left, and businessman Dennis Mi tsu naga emerge from U.S. District Count after being found not guilty of corruption.
STAR-ADVERTISER Max John Sword STAR-ADVERTISER Donna Yuk Lan Leong Honolulu's former corporation counsel and the ex-chair of the Police Commission will plead guilty March 4 to a misdemeanor federal conspiracy charge in connection with the $250, 000 retirement payment in 2017 to former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, according to federal court documents.
The plea agreement discussed Monday comes more than three years after former Corporation Counsel Donna Yuk Lan Leong, ex-Honolulu Police Commission Chair Max John Sword and then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell's Managing Director Roy Keiji Amemiya Jr. entered not-guilty pleas in January 2022 to felony charges that they conspired to defraud the county and federal government by paying Kealoha to retire in 2017.
From July 1, 2016, to June 3, 2017, Leong, Sword and Amemiya conspired to 'embezzle, steal, obtain by fraud and otherwise without authority ' more than $5, 000 or more from a city program receiving federal funding and conceal the source of the funds from the Honolulu City Council and the public, according to an indictment secured Dec. 16, 2021, and unsealed Jan. 12, 2022.
Federal prosecutors will 'file the superseding information charging conspiracy to deprive the residents of Honolulu, Hawaii of civil rights, ' before a March 4 change-of-plea hearing, according to federal court records.
Leong and Sword are scheduled for a waiver of indictment, arraignment and plea, and sentencing at 10 a.m. March 4 in Senior U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi's court. Amemiya will appear for a waiver of indictment, arraignment and plea the same day at 11 :30 a.m.
Michael Wheat, the special prosecutor handling the case from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California, retired Dec. 31.
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As recently as Dec. 3, one of Leong's attorneys, Lynn E. Panagakos, noted in a filing that both sides 'continue to be in active discussions in an ongoing effort to explore whether this case can be resolved short of trial.'
When asked what motivated federal prosecutors to settle a case they took to a grand jury and secured felony indictments on Dec. 16, 2021, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office handling the case declined comment.
'The plea agreements the Court discussed at the hearing (Monday ) have not yet been filed. The Change of Plea hearing is scheduled for March 4, ' read a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser from Kelly Thornton, director of media relations for the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California.
Attorneys for Amemiya, Leong and Sword did not respond to Star-Advertiser requests for comment. A status conference in the case was held Monday before Senior U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi.
Amemiya, Leong and Sword have been free on $50, 000 bonds. Sword and Leong will each pay a $100, 000 fine and serve one year of supervised release as part of their plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Leong and Sword each signed a plea agreement to 'the count in the forthcoming superseding information, with a sentence of time served, one year supervised release, and restitution, '
according to federal court records.
Amemiya entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, according to court documents.
The charge against Amemiya will be amended to a misdemeanor, and provided Amemiya abides by the conditions of the agreement, the charge against him will be dismissed as long as he is not convicted of a crime.
Amemiya's compliance will depend on 'certification by the Government's office, restitution, and a community service component.'
He has to pay a $50, 000 fine and serve two years of federal supervised release. Amemiya sought to have the case in January 2022.
The trio was accused of conspiring to pay Kealoha with federal funds and money from the Honolulu Police Department's salary pool and avoiding City Council review and approval.
The three former city leaders were taken into custody at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Kapolei headquarters on Jan. 12, 2022, as part of an ongoing public corruption investigation by a special prosecutor that focused on the intersection among Hawaii government, businesses and elected officials.
The investigation resulted in prison sentences for, former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha.
Louis Kealoha was sentenced to seven years in prison and will have to pay back the $250, 000 settlement.
Katherine Kealoha received 13 years in prison for leading the operations that defrauded her grandmother out of her home and framed her uncle for stealing the Kealohas' mailbox.
former Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro, businessman Dennis Mitsunaga and Mitsunaga employees Terri Ann Otani, Aaron Shunichi Fujii, Chad Michael McDonald and Sheri Jean Tanaka ended when a jury found all of them not guilty. All had pleaded not guilty May 17.
Kealoha has to pay back the settlement because he was convicted of a crime after he entered into the retirement agreement.
The three faced trial for allegedly manipulating the Honolulu Police Department to with money meant for vacant funded positions and then made 'materially false and misleading representations and omissions ' to the City Council to get money to obtain a reallocation of city funds to cover the Kealoha payment, according to the indictment.
They allegedly persuaded HPD to tell the Council that the department's request for additional 2017 fourth-quarter funds was caused by a 'salary shortfall ' caused by the payout to Kealoha in the third quarter.
On Jan. 6, 2017, Leong and Sword told reporters that a settlement with Kealoha was reached and that he was retiring.
Four days later, on Jan. 10, 2017, HPD leadership allegedly met with Sword and told him they could not pay a settlement from their budget.
That same day, Sword appeared before the Council's Public Health, Safety and Welfare Committee but declined to respond to members' questioning about the settlement.
The next day, Leong allegedly met with HPD leadership and was told the City Council had to vote on the settlement.
She allegedly said Council approval could be circumvented by 'falsely claiming HPD had used the money to hire new employees, ' then request additional money from the Council to cover the shortfall, according to the indictment.
Leong received an email from HPD's acting chief reiterating that Council approval for a settlement that size out of HPD's budget is required. Leong continued to push for the payment, according to the indictment, and restated her position that HPD claims the money was for new hires.
The City Council sent a letter to Sword asking whether the payment was going to be presented to the full Council for a vote and requesting a briefing before the Police Commission voted to approve Kealoha's settlement. Sword replied in writing that the settlement 'was primarily based on Kealoha's employment and retirement concerns and did not solely or primarily concern the use of federal funds.'
Sword then met with HPD leadership Jan. 13, 2017, and they told him they could not afford the payment without slashing services, and pushed him about why they needed to issue the payment to Kealoha.
'Oh, the reason it's very simple, ' Sword allegedly said, according to the indictment. 'So you don't have to go to the seven bananas, I mean nine bananas up at the Council.'
Legal memos, letters and correspondence from the deputy corporation counsel in 2017 and San Francisco-based law firm Farella Braun and Martel, contracted by the corporation counsel, show that the process used to pay Kealoha was similar to separation agreements executed with other former Honolulu officials that did not require Council review or approval.
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