For those of you who don’t see the Facebook posts by veteran journalist Bob Jones, here’s one of Bob’s posts from this morning about the ongoing trial in the Kealoha mailbox case, followed by my quick reply, which you may find of interest.
Bob:
I can’t say that from what I’ve read so far about the Kealoha trial that the prosecution has made a case of guilt. PRESUMED guilt, yes. But not the legal definition. They need a cop to come forward and say “I stole that mailbox and the chief and Kathy told me to.” Otherwise, the jury can believe a defense line that while the theft was poorly handled by HPD, “some dude” stole the mailbox and the Kealoha had nothing to do with that. What say you expert criminal lawyers?
My comment:
Well, they aren’t charged with stealing the mailbox. They are charged with conspiracy to willfully deprive residents of Honolulu the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; to corruptly “alter, destroy, and conceal a record, document, or other object” to impair its availability for use in an official proceeding, and to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, and to knowingly make “a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to impede an investigation. They are also charged with several counts of the underlying offenses of obstruction of official proceedings, with reference to false testimony; False statements to federal officer. The indictment spells out the overt acts that were part of the conspiracy, and the specific incidents of obstruction. Prosecutors seem to be ticking off most or all of those boxes as they proceed through the witnesses. I think this link will get you to the First Superseding Indictment in this case.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.hid.136695/gov.uscourts.hid.136695.164.0_2.pdf
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You pretty much nailed it.
Theft of the mailbox is what the US Attorney’s Office was foolishly duped into charging Puana with several years ago, and that case ended in fiasco and spawned the current case. It’s pretty incredible that some folks still just don’t get it…
(edited)
Yup, you’re right Ian. Someone is trying to dodge the central arguments, just like Fox News. The level of denial about the Kealohas is Hawaii’s version of Trump.
Meanwhile, relying solely on testimony from one witness would be utter nonsense. You don’t need to be a legal expert to know that. You’d get laughed out of court. Stop living in denial.
I’m not sure who commenter Tim is suggesting is in denial regarding the Kealohas.
Seems to me that the whole point here is that THE MAILBOX WAS NOT ACTUALLY STOLEN.
They don’t need a snitch witness when they have so much incriminating circumstantial evidence supporting the actual charges at issue here. Prediction: all found guilty on at least some of the charges.
Ummm…to clear up any possible confusion, let’s see what Allison Lee Wong’s perspective is.
I think you are the first on the Journalist-side of things to point that out. I haven’t seen much effort to explain the charges anywhere else.
Katherine is a sociopath.
No amount of “punishment” will get her to feel any remorse for the havoc she caused in lives of family and even banks and credit unions, which extends to depositors. All this time and money spent: does it stop others from doing likewise? There is no justice; just moving on.