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Associated Press
12-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Hawaii executive indicted for illegal campaign donations
Ala Moana developer Timothy Lee was indicted Friday on nine felony counts of illegally funneling money to Honolulu mayoral candidates in 2020, a rare instance when alleged campaign finance violations could result in prison time. Lee, CEO of JL Capital, the investment firm behind the development of the Sky Ala Moana high-rise, was arrested Monday and released after posting $250,000 bail. He is to be arraigned on Feb. 18. The details of Lee's case harken back to an earlier era of campaign spending cases when felony charges were more common. In the early 2000s, dozens of executives at design and engineering firms were accused of laundering money to the campaigns of Hawaiʻi's most prominent politicians. Many avoided any jail time and paid hefty fines instead. In the last decade, all of the cases forwarded to prosecutors by the state Campaign Spending Commission, which oversees election money in Hawaiʻi, have either resulted in fines or no criminal charges being filed. Lee faces up to five years of prison on each felony count. 'Campaign contribution laws are critical safeguards of our electoral process,' Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a press release. She said her office, which is prosecuting the case, 'will vigorously investigate and prosecute individuals that violate those laws.' In 2022, the office declined to take up another case of allegedly illegal donations made by a lawyer to a candidate for Kauaʻi mayor, citing insufficient evidence. The office declined Tuesday to comment on the rarity of campaign spending cases in the last decade, but credited deputy attorneys general in the Special Investigations and Prosecution Division, an anti-corruption unit created in 2022, as well as the Investigation Division for bringing the Lee case to an indictment by the grand jury. The charges against Lee stem from campaign donations made in March and April 2020 by JL Capital employees to Keith Amemiya and Kym Pine, at the time candidates for mayor. Amemiya's campaign received $5,000; Pine's received $8,000. Neither former candidate has been accused of wrongdoing by prosecutors and campaign finance regulators. Lee later reimbursed employees for those donations in cash and checks, according to the indictment. Donations to mayoral campaigns are capped at $4,000 from any one source. Lee maxed his donations to both Amemiya and Pine around the time he allegedly asked employees to donate to the campaigns, according to campaign spending data. The case first came to the attention of the Campaign Spending Commission via a tip in October 2020 from an attorney representing a JL Capital employee involved in a labor dispute with the company. The employee claimed he was told by Lee to write checks to the Amemiya and Pine campaigns. When the case went before the five-member commission in 2022, Lee's lawyer challenged claims made in the state's investigation that alleged Lee asked the employees to donate to the mayoral campaigns. However, at a hearing in April 2022, the lawyer, David Minkin, seemed to acknowledge that Lee reimbursed employees for those donations, which is illegal in Hawaiʻi. 'Mr. Lee is fully aware of the consequences and fully understands he cannot reimburse people months later for contributions made on their own behest,' Minkin said at the time. In the end, the commission voted unanimously to send the case to state prosecutors. As a condition of his release, Lee was ordered not to contact Ka Wai Norman Chan and Tetsuaki Saihara, two of the employees. He was also ordered to turn over any firearms, ammunition and firearms licenses to police, and must surrender his passport at arraignment. Lee is still listed as the manager and agent on JL Ala Moana LLC's business file with the state, current as of Jan. 2. The company's website, which once displayed its executive team and portfolio of properties in the Ala Moana neighborhood, appears to have gone dark earlier this year. It now just displays a black screen with the company name. The indictment comes at a time of renewed focus on campaign donations. Randal Lee, a retired judge and former prosecutor, led investigations of straw donations in the early 2000s. He said those cases, involving people who donated in the names of family members and employees, have become rarer after investigations exposed the techniques people used to conceal donations. And campaign finance law at the time didn't make it easy for prosecutors, who could not take up cases themselves and had to wait for a referral from the commission, which has historically been short-staffed, Lee said. After two former legislators were caught taking bribes in 2022, the law changed, allowing prosecutors to independently pursue campaign spending cases. That year, lawmakers also created the new anti-corruption unit in the Attorney General's Office. Strong enforcement is necessary to keep the donors and campaigns in line, Lee said. 'The only way to keep people from violating campaign spending laws is to have some punitive action taken against them,' Lee said. Gary Kam, general counsel of the Campaign Spending Commission, said commission staff are often occupied with just ensuring that spending reports come in on time and following up with campaigns that fail to file. Having more staff and an investigator could help the commission find other instances of bundled donations. 'If we can get more staff, maybe we could have someone who looks at those kinds of circumstances,' Kam said. State lawmakers in the current session are advancing measures to increase staffing at the commission. The agency currently has just five employees, no investigator, and was tasked with monitoring nearly $10 million in donations in 2024. ___
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CEO indicted for alleged illegal campaign donations
An Oahu grand jury Friday indicted JL Capital CEO Timothy Lee, 48, on nine counts of false-name contribution for allegedly making $13, 000 in campaign contributions in another person's name in 2020 to the mayoral campaigns of Keith Ame miya and Kymberly Pine. The false-name contribution charge is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years' imprisonment and a $10, 000 fine. Lee was served with a bench warrant Monday and arrested. He posted a $250, 000 bail bond Monday and was released from custody. A Circuit Court judge Friday ordered that he surrender his passport at his arraignment and plea Feb. 18 and that he stay away from two people whose names he allegedly used in making the contributions. This was the second case in which Lee had gotten into trouble for allegedly violating a campaign spending law. In 2021 the Campaign Spending Commission fined him for a violation in the same 2020 mayoral election cycle. Lee donated $7, 000 to Pine's campaign, exceeding the state limit by $3, 000. He was fined $500 but asked for and received a reduced fine of $166 because it was his first offense. Don 't miss out on what 's happening ! Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE ! Email 28141 Sign Up By clicking to sign up, you agree to Star-Advertiser 's and Google 's and. This form is protected by reCAPTCHA. State law allows a person to make donations of up to $4, 000 in mayoral races. The indictment alleges that Lee made contributions totaling $5, 000 to Amemiya's campaign and $8, 000 to Pine's. In October 2020 a whistleblower, through his attorney Andrew Stewart, reported to the commission that he and other employees of JL Capital, a Honolulu-based investment firm, and its affiliate JL Ala Moana LLC, were directed by Lee to make the donations by check and were reimbursed by Lee. JL Capital has invested millions of dollars in Ala Moana-area properties. JL Ala Moana LLC is the developer of the now-completed $500 million Sky Honolulu (Sky Ala Moana ) condominium project owned by Joon-ho Lee, who ranks among South Korea's richest two dozen billionaires, according to Forbes. The commission's staff conducted an investigation on eight counts of false-name contributions and found that employees made the donations and were reimbursed by Lee a total of $12, 000. The commission's executive director in 2022 recommended turning over the case to the Department of the Attorney General, which it did. The department's Special Investigation and Prosecution Division and the Investigations Division investigated the matter and apparently discovered an additional donation in the amount of $1, 000, bringing the total to nine counts and $13, 000. SIPD is the state's primary law enforcement unit responsible for investigating and prosecuting corruption, fraud and economic crimes, the attorney general said in a news release, adding that the Investigations Division conducts criminal and administrative investigations into state-related matters. 'Campaign contribution laws are critical safeguards of our electoral process, ' said Attorney General Anne Lopez in a written statement. 'The Department of the Attorney General will vigorously investigate and prosecute individuals that violate these laws.' The Attorney General's Office brought the matter before a grand jury Friday, just under the five-year statute of limitations. The allegedly illegal contributions and reimbursements were made between March and June 2020, the indictment says. It says Lee contributed a total of $13, 000 with checks drawn from six different accounts in the amounts of $1, 000, $2, 000 and $4, 000 to either Amemiya for Mayor or Friends of Kymberly Pine. It says Lee reimbursed them in cash or checks from a Central Pacific Bank account in the names of Timothy Lee and Kanako O. Lee. In one instance the reimbursement was made to Hibiscus Interactive LLC from a check drawn from an account in the name of JL Avalon Capbridge LLC. According to the whistleblower's complaint, Lee approached him and other employees shortly after he began working at JL Capital in 2020. The complaint says Lee told him to write two checks, one for $1, 000 to Amemiya's campaign and another for $2, 000 to Pine's. He then received an envelope with $3, 000 in cash, the complaint says. The whistleblower's complaint includes bank records that show Lee wrote a check June 11, 2020, made payable to $3, 000 cash, which Lee cashed the same day. Stewart said the whistleblower was fired after exposing Lee's alleged illegal contribution activities. Lee's attorney, David Minkin, in a March 2, 2022, letter, denied Lee gave the whistleblower cash to reimburse for campaign contributions. Minkin said Lee terminated him and gave him a small amount of money from his personal funds to help in the whistleblower's transition to different employment. Minkin did not return a phone call Monday requesting comment on the indictment. Gary Kam, general counsel for the commission, said in 2022 that the investigation did not focus on donation recipients or check-writing employees. When asked whether the AG is investigating either the recipients or those who wrote the checks, spokesperson Toni Schwartz responded, 'The Department of the Attorney General will not make statements on the existence or status of possible investigations or on possible pending cases.' Amemiya said in 2022 he and his campaign team were unaware anyone had been reimbursed for their donations by Lee and that the commission confirmed they were not the subject of an investigation. In response to Lee's indictment, Pine said Monday : 'I'm grateful this person wanted to support me, but I can say, if this is true, I'm extremely disappointed because it makes all candidates and their treasurers, who are trying to work extremely hard to be open, honest and transparent, look bad. 'He worked for one of the wealthiest Korean landowners that owns almost all of the Ala Moana area. Typically a person of that stature could easily have raised money with all his Ala Moana partners.' Regarding Lee's first campaign contribution violation, Pine recalls the first check was written in 2017 and the second in late 2020. When her campaign was made aware of it, her treasurer worked with the commission, she said. Kam said there were three of four donations made under the name Timothy J. Lee, and one was under the name Tim Lee. The commission office caught the discrepancy and notified Lee. Pine was not fined, but voluntarily paid the fine on Lee's behalf and, by law, had to return the $3, 000 excess contribution to the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund, Kam said, adding it is not unusual for a candidate to pay a fine on a donor's behalf.
