Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Nelson Daranciang added another small piece of the still unfolding investigation surrounding former deputy city prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, who served as chief of the Career Criminal and Sexual Assault Division, and her husband, former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha.
In a story published on Saturday, Daranciang called attention to disclosures made in a memo filed recently in state court by an attorney representing Katherine Kealoha, part of her attempt to block disclosure records related to her work in the office of Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, who is also on leave after becoming snared in the same federal investigation. The new memo was filed in a separate proceeding that has become entangled with pending federal criminal charges against the Kealohas (see “City prosecutor hired felony defendant while case was pending“).
In this case, separate but intertwined with the charges against Katherine Kealoha, former HPD Sargeant Albert Lee is being prosecuted as a result of a traffic accident in November 2016. Lee’s vehicle careened off the road and hit a Hawaiian Electric Co. power facility on Lunalilo Home Road in Hawaii Kai, immediately outside the entrance to Kaiser High School. The accident caused over $200,000 in damage to the building and the equipment in it, leading to a power outage that affected “more than 1,000 residents,” according to a lawsuit filed against Lee by Hawaiian Electric.
Lee’s attorney has alleged that Lee is being prosecuted in retaliation for his involvement in the citation and arrest of Honolulu businessman Michael Miske, whose background includes several felony convictions as well as pending charges of felony assault.
For more background, see my posts, “Man was facing felony charges when aided by Katherine Kealoha,” and “Attorney alleges prosecutors retaliated against HPD officer for businessman’s arrest“.
Daranciang reported that the prosecutor’s office contracted with a plumbing company owned or controlled by Miske at the same time he was being prosecuted by the office for felony assault.
Prosecutor spokesman Brooks Baehr said Kamaaina Plumbing Co. performed emergency repairs to fix leaky pipes and valves in two units of the Prosecutor’s Safe House, formerly known as the Family Justice Center, in March 2015. He said Special Assistant to the Prosecutor Roger Lau selected Kamaaina Plumbing for the job.
Kealoha’s Career Criminal Unit was prosecuting Miske at the time for assault and criminal property damage for a December 2012 incident in an open parking lot near his Restaurant Row nightclub. The case is still pending but is now being prosecuted by the state Department of the Attorney General. Both law enforcement agencies declined to comment on why the Attorney General took over the case.
Lee claims he is being prosecuted because he arrested Miske for fleeing from a traffic stop against Kealoha’s wishes. He said after a subordinate officer had previously tried to arrest Miske, Kealoha called the subordinate and told him to back off. He also said Miske invoked Lau’s name in trying to discourage the officer from arresting him.
The disclosure that Miske’s company had been hired by the prosecutor’s office was contained in a series of documents, including emails, appended to the memo filed on Katherine Kealoha’s behalf.
In one email dated May 4, 2016, Wayne Wills, at that time the chief investigator for the prosecutor’s office, forwarded to Kealoha a complaint he had filed with HPD regarding Sgt. Lee. In that complaint, Wills recounted the November 2015 incident in which Miske was pulled over after being observed using a cell phone while driving.
Within a couple of days of being stopped by Officer Spiker, Miske contacted Roger Lau, Special Assistant-Security Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (PAT). Roger sent a memo to DPA Katherine Kealoha and said that Miske was considering making a complaint against Spiker to the Police Commission as Spiker was harassing him. Roger also mentioned that Miske had assisted our office (PAT) in the past (some stuff at the Family Justice Center). DPA Kealoha obliged Roger’s request and reached out directly to Spiker and conveyed the info Roger had provided. Spiker said he was going to stand down.
According to records of the State Campaign Spending Commission, Roger Lau was deputy chair of Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro’s 2016 reelection campaign as well as a special assistant in his office.
What is not explained is exactly why prosecutors felt Miske should be shielded from the traffic citation because one of his company’s previously provided minor plumbing work at the domestic violence safe house formerly known as the Family Justice Center.
It has been previously reported that the purchase of the property by the prosecutor’s office is at the center of the investigation of Kaneshiro, who was notified early this year that he is the target of a federal criminal investigation. He is currently on a leave of absence pending the outcome of the investigation.
Wills, who formerly served as Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations Honolulu Field Office, was employed in the prosecutor’s office between February and October 2016, according to his entry on LinkedIn.com. Real estate records show that he lives in the Hawaii Kai neighborhood known as Mariner’s Cove, just a couple of blocks from where Katherine and Louis Kealoha lived at the time. The Kealoha’s house was subsequently foreclosed on by the lender, and was sold earlier this year.
After leaving the prosecutor’s office, Wills formed his own security firm, Kai Investigative and Security Services, LLC. In the successful January 2016 application of Aloha Green for a medical marijuana dispensary license, Wills was listed as a member of the company’s “application team” with primary responsibility for security, inventory control, and privacy of client information.
The whole situation is already quite convoluted, and became more so earlier this year when federal prosecutors alleged in court filings that Katherine Kealoha used the computer and email accounts of others in her office to send emails intended to mislead or misdirect the recipients, sometimes using a pseudonym or sending the emails in the names of the other employees. As a result, it is hard to determine whether the emails attached to Kealoha’s court filing were actually written by those whose names appear on then, or covertly authored by Kealoha herself.
The trial of the Kealohas and several co-defendants on charges that they conspired to frame her uncle for the theft of their mailbox and then coverup their acts is scheduled to begin later this month in Honolulu’s federal district court.