According to federal prosecutors, the Honolulu businessman at the center of an alleged violent criminal gang has spent several years attempting to “go dark,” to hide in plain sight by concealing his ties to the businesses that were part of what prosecutors have called the “Miske Enterprise.”

Tucked away on page 22 of a 23-page legal memo filed by federal prosecutors earlier this week is a brief description of Michael Miske’s attempts to hide his assets. Prosecutors allege Miske is the ringleader of a criminal gang that operated out of the offices shared by several legitimate businesses he controls.

Over the course of the investigation into the Enterprise, MISKE has made a concerted and comprehensive effort to disassociate himself from KTPC (Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, Inc) and the other companies he controls in order to avoid prosecution and tracing of his assets. MISKE attempted to do so by listing “straw” individuals as president, vice- president, etc. of KTPC and other entities and removing himself as a signer on the company bank accounts. A specific example of this occurred in October, 2016 when MISKE sent those very instructions, via text message, to his accountant at the time after Central Pacific Bank severed its business relationship with MISKE and his companies. In the messages, MISKE stated, “Time to go dark” and “I believe it’s the Feds and their subpoenas just trying to make my life hard.”

I ran directly into an instance of Miske’s disappearing act while reporting a story a couple of years ago.

In March 2018, I wrote a column for Civil Beat which described the behind-the-scenes power plays as the city considered Miske’s controversial request for special authority to place lights on a tree in a city beach park in Hawaii Kai as a memorial (“Ian Lind: Playing Hardball Paid Off For Hawaii Kai Tree Lights“).

The column described Miske as the owner of Kamaaina Termite, based on previous business registration records, and as former part-owner and manager of M Nightclub in downtown Honolulu’s Restaurant Row. The club had closed suddenly in November 2016 following news accounts of a string of assaults on patrons by nightclub staff in which Miske was alleged to have participated. Makana Pacific Development, the company that would be providing the tree lights, was also identified as one of Miske’s companies, on the strength of documents he signed and filed with the city as part of the tree lighting request.

On the morning the column appeared on the Civil Beat website, an email from Adrian Kamalii, a public relations consultant representing Miske, denied the businessman had any ownership interest in Kamaaina Termite. Kamalii had previously appeared before the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board to publicly defend the tree lighting proposal.

“This is a request to edit your article or retract the company name from your blog post in Civil Beat today,” Kamalii wrote. “Mike Miske is not the owner of KTPC as explicated in their DCCA filings. Would appreciate the accuracy and having the named removed, if possible. KTPC has nothing to do with this story.”

Kamalii repeated his demand in a series of emails.

“I’m trying to make sense of mentioning a company who has no bone to pick in your perceived exposé. Just remove the company name. Or if you really want to mention KTPC, I can send you to all the orgs we donate our services to on a yearly basis,” he wrote.

Kamalii also disputed Miske’s connections with other companies, which the federal indictment now describes as being owned by Miske.

“Is your intent is to harm the companies’ reputations, affect our employees and business by mentioning them in an article about Mike?,” Kamalii asked in another email.

With the disputed article already online, and the clock ticking, I wasn’t able to muster sufficient documentation to defend my assertion to a properly skeptical editor. My bad. Although business records and other documents made clear Miske had been the owner of Kamaaina Termite, I had not yet turned up definitive documentation of his continued ownership of the company. Given the denial conveyed by Kamalii, I reluctantly agreed to drop the reference to Kamaaina Termite from the column.

I had been following the changes that showed up in Kamaaina Termite’s filings with the state’s Business Registration office over several years. When examining the reported changes in officers, it appeared to me that the paper changes didn’t reflect an actual change in ownership of the company, especially give the Miske’s close relationship to those who took his place on the officer lists filed with state regulators.

April 1, 2015. The annual registration statement for Kamaaina Termite & Pest Control listed Michael Miske as the sole officer, as it had for a number of years since the company was registered to do business in June 2000.

July 31, 2015. Paperwork was filed to add Andrea Kaneakua a director

April 27, 2016. The company’s Annual Report continued to list Michael Miske as the sole officer, but dropped Kaneakua, who was no longer listed as a director.

July 27, 2016. A document was filed registering Delia Anne Miske as President.

October 31, 2016. Officer list was changed, dropping Miske and adding Delia-Anne Fabro as the sole officer (P/V/S/T/D). Fabro is Delia-Anne’s maiden name.

January 26, 2017. The next report simply listed Delia-Anne Fabro as sole officer of Kamaaina Termite & Pest Control.

Both Delia-Ann Miske and Andrea Kaneakua have long or personal ties to Mike Miske, and did not appear likely to have taken independent control of his companies.

Delia-Ann Miske, whose name first appears as an officer of Kamaaina Termite in July 2016, was the young wife of Miske’s son, Caleb-Jordon Keanu Miske Lee. She graduated from St. Francis School in 2012, and the two were married on October 10, 2015.

Miske-Lee died on March 12, 2016, of injuries suffered when the car he was driving crashed while speeding in Kaneohe on the evening of November 17, 2015. Jonathan Fraser, Caleb’s best friend, was a passenger in the car, but survived the accident. He disappeared in July 2016. Miske is now charged with directing a murder-for-hire scheme to kill Fraser and dispose of his body.

In the years since Caleb’s death, Delia’s name has appeared on most of Mike Miske’s companies as their sole officer and agent.

Andrea Kaneakua, who had been added briefly as a director of the company, had been a longtime employee.

A decade earlier, in 2005, she was identified as the person in charge of the Kamaaina Termite office when a deputy sheriff arrived to serve court documents on Mike Miske. Details of the incident became public when Miske later appealed a default judgement against him, arguing that the original service had been faulty.

The deputy sheriff stated in a declaration that “a woman who seemed to be in charge, told me to come back later and to serve Michael Miske.”

He returned to the office the following day.

On 11/30/05 at 3:00pm, I served an adult female who appeared to be in charge. She was extremely evasive and refused to give me any information. I asked to speak to the manager, ofc. manager or any supervisor in charge and she refused. She did admit that her [sic] and a staff of 5 employees that were present worked for Kama’aina Termite. In addition, she had the largest and most prominent office there and conducted herself as the individual in charge of operations.

“In [his] declaration, he stated that the woman he served was same woman he spoke to the day before. None of the employees would direct him to someone who would willingly accept service, the woman he served took charge of the situation both times Pieper attempted service, and this same woman refused to reveal her name after he served her the Complaint,” according to a decision by the Intermediate Court of Appeals in the case (Impact Financial Services v. Kamaaina Termite & Pest Control, Inc.).”

The woman was later identified during court proceedings as Kaneakua.

Kaneakua submitted a declaration and attached a copy of the company’s then-current business registration, which showed Maydeen Stancil as agent and sole officer.

“It does not show any ‘Mike’,” Kaneakua declared.

However, the Intermediate Court decision notes that just a week after Kaneakua submitted her declaration, Mike Miske filed another in which he identified himself as the Chief Executive Officer of Kama‘aina and identified Maydeen Stancil as the registered agent.

Maydeen Stancil appears to be the former Maydeen Miske, Mike Miske’s mother. She had remarried after the death of Miske’s father in 1980. Maydeen is also the mother of John B. Stancil, one of the defendants along with Miske in the current federal case.

Court records also show that Kaneakua had a temporary restraining order against Miske based on allegations of domestic abuse, which was extended for three years in July 2000. Court minutes show Miske agreed to the extension, but denied the allegations of domestic abuse and requested that no findings of abuse be made “at this time.” That was important for him because at that time, Miske was on probation, scheduled to end just a few months later on September 20, 2000, according to the court record.

Fabro and Kaneakua’s status as “straw” names covering Miske’s continued control of Kamaaina Termite appears to have been confirmed by Mike Miske’s sworn affidavit in a recently settled lawsuit against the former owners of Oahu Termite & Pest Control. The case stems from a contract dispute over terms of a 2016 agreement under which Miske and his Kamaaina Termite agreed to purchase the assets of Oahu Termite, which had been in business for nearly four decades and had given Miske his start in the termite treatment industry.

In an affidavit filed in April 2020, Miske declared without equivocation: “I am the president and owner of Kamaaina Termite & Pest Control, Inc.”

Miske stated he had started as an employee of Oahu Termite years ago, and then later started his own firm under the name Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control. Since late 2012, and continuing through 2016, Oahu had used Kamaaina Termite as a subcontractor, racking up nearly $54,000 in unpaid bills over that period, according to documents filed in the lawsuit. Miske and Kamaaina reached the agreement to purchase the assets of Oahu Termite in December 2016, and made a $5,000 down payment to seal the deal on December 29, 2016, according to Miske’s affidavit.

As detailed in the lawsuit, the assets to be transferred to Kamaaina Termite included Oahu’s customer records and database, telephone numbers, vehicles, rights to the business name, and other assets, and the deal was to be financed in part with credit for the outstanding amounts owed.

But after the assets were transferred, Miske alleged many of them turned out to be worthless, and Oahu’s business records were in such a shambles that no new work was ever obtained from its client list, according to his affidavit. At the same time, there was a dispute over the amount to be paid to Oahu’s owners, Harry and Noriko Kansaki. As a result, a breach of contract lawsuit was filed by Miske and Kamaaina last year to enforce the oral agreement.

A default judgement was issued in Miske’s and Kamaaina’s favor in December 2019, affirming Miske’s version of the deal, after Oahu Termite’s owners failed to respond to the lawsuit. Earlier this month, a state judge awarded Miske and Kamaaina $14,967.78 for costs they had incurred.

Both Kamaaina and Oahu Termite are now owned and operated by Miske, although they appear to be competing companies. Their future now appears in doubt following the federal indictment and prosecutors seizing of business records and other documents.