David Shapiro: How did handcuffs come to be Honolulu’s new jewelry fad?
Minnie Pannel January 16, 2022
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Video clip of previous city Corporation Counsel Donna Leong staying handcuffed and perp-walked into FBI places of work to be served a federal conspiracy indictment epitomized a sorry interval of metropolis governance.
As with other corruption circumstances linked with jailed former police Chief Louis Kealoha and his prosecutor wife, Katherine, the feds are addressing alleged malfeasance that area authorities had just about every motive to suspect but dismissed.
Leong, the major town lawyer under previous Mayor Kirk Caldwell, faces expenses alongside with Caldwell’s Controlling Director Roy Amemiya and previous Law enforcement Fee Chairman Max Sword in excess of a controversial $250,000 payout to Louis Kealoha when he retired as the U.S. legal professional shut in.
The indictment charged they illegally redirected police money intended to employ new officers to pay Kealoha and conspired to parcel the payments to avert needed acceptance of the City Council, allegedly referred to by Sword as the “nine bananas.”
Issues about the payment had been no mystery at the time to the Council, Caldwell or metropolis and condition prosecutors, but none acted. The U.S. attorney investigated since federal cash had been associated.
Then-acting Police Main Cary Okimoto publicly objected to the payment. He and his deputies informed the Police Fee, Council and Caldwell administration that HPD didn’t have funds to address the outlay, and expressed perception that Council acceptance was essential. His issues were being lined in the media.
The indictment alleged Okimoto was pressured by defendants to fall his objections and conceal the legitimate source of the cash to keep away from Council involvement, with a warning from Amemiya that he was “burning bridges.”
Okimoto was not on the listing of finalists for long-lasting chief and retired.
Leong’s attorney said the payout was essential to “expeditiously independent previous chief Kealoha from HPD,” but there was no motive to hurry.
Kealoha was currently on leave, and law enforcement commissioners could have simply just fired him for bring about, of which they had a lot. He could possibly have sued, but so what? You really don’t use community revenue to fork out off crooks with no a combat.
Caldwell is jogging for governor, and his legal professional claimed he would “be fascinated in the coming times and weeks to recognize the fees that have been brought.”
He regarded himself a palms-on mayor, and Amemiya and Leong ended up amid his closest aides, fueling speculation about his information of the transaction.
Caldwell refused to set Amemiya on leave just after he been given a federal concentrate on letter, and Councilman Calvin Say later employed Amemiya as an aide to increase his metropolis pension even with the very likely pending indictment.
Although local leaders regarded $250,000 as no large offer, the U.S. lawyer rightly took a dim check out of proper technique getting overtly circumvented to hand out federal income to a before long-to-be felon.
The defendants will get a good hearing on their harmless pleas, but in federal court there’s very little hope of a welcoming ruling from a regional judge, these as Honolulu Prosecutor Steven Alm instructed was the situation in the modern dismissal of drunken driving prices against state Rep. Sharon Har.
Achieve David Shapiro at [email protected].
