With Fox News reporter and former Hawaii journalist Malia Zimmerman back in the headlines, I thought it was time to go back and see check on the status of her legal dispute with former state Senator Sam Slom. This really has nothing directly to do with Zimmerman’s current troubles, but it is relevant to her time in Hawaii, when she failed to acknowledge her personal, political, and business conflicts while reporting on matters involving Slom and his Small Business Hawaii.

You may or may not recall that back in July 2015, Zimmerman filed suit against Slom seeking reimbursement for payments she said she had made on a Hawaii Kai home where the two lived together for a decade. As I reported at the time:

Zimmerman filed a lawsuit in First Circuit Court…accusing Slom of refusing to follow through with a mutually agreed cash settlement reflecting her share of a Hawaii Kai home where the couple lived together for ten years. The lawsuit argues that Zimmerman should be repaid for what she paid to maintain and improve the property, as well as her share of the mortgage, taxes, and similar expenses for the house in which she was a half-owner as well as half of a politically conservative power couple.

Just a few months later, in November 2015, Zimmerman dropped her suit.

Slom said he felt “vindicated” by the dismissal of the case, according to a statement at the time from his attorney, John S. Carroll.

Slom, Carroll wrote, “trusts that this will discredit the allegations hurled at him” by “political media, and bloggers with an agenda.” Those allegations and rumors were “improper, false, and damaging,” the statement said.

Now it turns out that was far from the end of the story.

A year after that first lawsuit was dropped, a second suit was filed seeking to force Slom to comply with a signed settlement agreement.

It turns out Zimmerman and Slom had both signed off on a settlement agreement that required him to pay back those expenses that were at issue in the original case. And the agreement contained a clause providing that if the parties could not agree on the amount, that matter would be arbitrated.

According to the second lawsuit, Zimmerman triggered the arbitration clause after Slom failed to pay her. But Slom failed to sign the arbitration agreement or pay his half of the arbitrator’s down payment, so the scheduled arbitration was eventually cancelled. Zimmerman’s second lawsuit followed on November 2, 2016, just a week before the general election in which Slom was defeated.

The arbitration hearing was finally held on May 2, 2017, with Honolulu attorney Charles Crumptom as arbitrator. As provided in their earlier settlement agreement, the arbitration was to be “final and binding.”

The final arbitration award is part of the court record. Here’s the bottom line.

The arbitrator confirm that Zimmerman and Slom “lived together in a romantic, monogamous relationship from approximately 2002 to 2013, initially in a residence rented by Mr. Slom, and subsequently in the Property home that was purchased by and in the name of Mr. Slom, and which Mr. Slom still owns and maintains as his residence.”

The arbitrator reviewed the monetary claims made by Zimmerman, and opposing testimony by Slom.

Based upon a preponderance of the relevant and credible evidence and the agreements of the Parties, it is determined that the expenses of the Property were the agreed amount of $4,350 per month or a total of $300,150.00 for the subject period from January 2008 through September 2013; that taking in account the portion of the payments of $205,997.38 that Mr. Slom paid for expenses of the Property from funds to which Ms. Zimmerman contributed, the reasonably certain allocation of the property expense payments during the subject period was 60% by Mr. Slom and 40% by Ms. Zimmerman. Therefore, the amount of the Property expense reimbursement due to Ms. Zimmerman to be paid by Mr. Slom is $120,060.

In addition, the arbitrator awarded Zimmerman interest of $17,957.94, costs of $8,199, attorney’s fees of $21,242.69, and tax in the of $1,000.96.

“Based on the agreements of the Parties, the preponderance of the relevant and credible evidence and the application of the governing law, Ms. Zimmerman is entitled to a total award of $168,460.59,” the arbitrator ruled.

Slom was told to make the payment within 30 days “of the issuance of this award.” The final arbitration award was signed and dated May 8, 2017. The court approved the final judgement on July 7, 2017.

One small item of interest. According to the arbitration award, one of the payments Zimmerman said she had made for house-related expenses was a $7,500 check from Hawaii Reporter, the company that operated the online news site of the same name. Zimmerman was co-founder and president of Hawaii Reporter.

“…Mr. Slom testified [it] was for columns he wrote; the check indicated it was for 150 columns at $150/each; Ms. Zimmerman testified that the payment was in fact to Mr. Slom for Property and other expenses that were owed and he needed to pay at that time…”

It is just another indication of the complicated terrain that results when reporting, politics, and personal relationships are allowed to become so intertwined.