Oops. I didn’t mean for this to be posted when I hit that button. Oh, well, Too late now, I suppose…

Peter Boylan’s two stories on a sovereignty scam targeting Native Hawaiian homeowners are highly recommended reading. The first story appeared yesterday, with a follow-up today adding a few details. The case harkens back to the Perfect Title scam a decade ago which involved similar sovereignty claims and ended with several convictions for theft.

What I don’t quite understand is why Boylan’s stories don’t name the companies or individuals engaged in this alleged scam. He refers to “several local companies” and “a ‘mesmerizing’ Native Hawaiian woman who acts as the company’s pitchman,” but none are identified. That seems odd to me.

Boylan’s story today, however, did drop in a reference to the Hawaii Loa Foundation.

A quick search for background on the foundation turned up this notice of an October 30 presentation on Kauai by Mahealani Ventura-Oliver. According to the announcement:

Mahealani and her husband, John have worked for seven years to free the Aina, restore rightful title and relieve the financial debts of people throughout Ko Hawaii Pae Aina (the entire Hawaiian archipelago). Perhaps no one has a greater knowledge of Hawaiian history, Royal Patent laws, legalities of original jurisdiction and an understanding of commerce, than Mahealani. YOU WILL WANT TO ATTEND!!

Court indexes indicate Ventura-Oliver has been involved in a number of land-related court cases.

It sure sounds like someone who could be related to the alleged scam as described by the Advertiser, but the couple’s names do not show us a officers of any businesses currently registered to operate in the State of Hawaii. Neither is the Hawaii Loa Foundation an entity registered in Hawaii, or at least it doesn’t show up in business registration records.

Bureau of Conveyance records do indicate a link that sets off my alarms–two documents linking Eric Aaron Lighter to Ventura-Oliver. I have not had a chance to examine the documents, but there are several parallels between what has been described by the Advertiser and Lighter’s own history. He has previously been accused several times of fraudulently taking property from people he was supposed to be “helping” with their financial problems. He allegedly was paid to protect people from creditors or from tax debts, and used a variety of techniques to slow the legal process. In the meantime, however, he was accused of taking his clients’ property, including homes. Although he has only been charged once with theft in Hawaii, civil lawsuits have forced him to return property and money taken in other cases, and he is now facing multiple counts of tax fraud and related conspiracy in a federal court in Northern California.