My latest story was published early this morning by Civil Beat (“Miske Case Rocks Stagehand Union After Executive Board Member’s Guilty Plea“). It’s another twist in the criminal case against former business owner Mike Miske and co-defendants, charged with being associated with a racketeering organization Miske controlled and directed.

I missed quite a few daily blog posts over the past month as I was reporting this story, and then trying to plan out how to write about it, and I apologize to readers here for that.

Here’s my lede to today’s story:

The ripple effects from the federal criminal prosecution of former Honolulu business owner Michael Miske Jr. are now rocking Local 665 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees after a member of its executive board admitted he took part in drug trafficking, armed robberies and at least one murder-for-hire scheme as a member of a racketeering organization that Miske controlled and directed.

Norman Lani Akau III appeared before a federal judge in Honolulu last month and pleaded guilty to a single count of having “willfully and knowingly” conspired with others in the Miske Enterprise to plan or carry out a series of crimes beginning at least by 2015 and continuing until his arrest.

At the time of his arrest last year, Akau, a camera and rigging grip who earned credits as a crew member on a number of movies and television series, was serving his third term as an elected at-large member of IATSE Local 665’s executive board.

I’ve been digging into the union since getting a tip last month concerning upheaval after Akau’s arrest and eventual guilty plea, which include allegations of financial irregularities within the union.

I’m working on a follow-up story now, and don’t have a clear idea at this point of where this is all going.

Here’s one matter that didn’t make it into this initial story. During negotiations with prosecutors over a plea agreement, Akau offered up information about other crimes he knew about or participated in which had not been previously known to prosecutors, and prosecutors agreed they would not bring charges against Akau related to anything he fully disclosed during this part of the process.

One of these additional crimes which became public when it was cited during the federal court hearing on Akau’s guilty plea was a murder-for-hire plot in which Akau agreed to accept $50,000 to kill a union official, apparently the result of a dispute with Mike Miske over access to jobs on Honolulu’s waterfront.

It is not known whether any of Akau’s additional disclosures involved misdeeds by Akau or other IATSE members or officers, because these matters were not discussed in the open hearing, and the plea agreement itself has been sealed by the court at the request of Akau’s attorney and remains secret. That possibility must worry some union members.

Another interesting aside. Akau was a convicted felon and had previously served prison time for shooting a taxi driver with a sawed-off shotgun in a botched 1994 robbery when he was 21 year old. He was sentenced to 20 years in 1995, but earned an early release from prison in 2004, and became an IATSE member in May 2009, while still on parole.

Akau’s co-defendent in the robbery, Gregory Nagao, received his union card a month later.

In 2006, federal authorities alleged Nagao was a member of the CIRCO Boys gang of Honolulu. Although Nagao had come to Hawaii as a child and had been living here legally, he was later deported to his native South Korea after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency determined his felony conviction in the 1994 case had violated the conditions of his green card.

But I’m told his membership dues were being paid and his membership remained active, at least until Akau’s arrest last year. And Akau was using an email address that had been Nagao’s, and that email address was listed in union newsletters as Akau’s primary contact as an executive board member. I haven’t yet heard a good explanation for this little anomaly, so it just leaves me with a nagging question.

I’ve been told the union provided little information to its members at the time of Akau’s arrest last summer. The union’s website and Facebook page disappeared temporarily while his name and photo were removed from the list of executive board members, and no further information was provided to its members or to the public.

This option of going silent seems an odd response to the revelation that at least three union members, one of the an elected member of the executive board, were involved with Miske’s alleged criminal conspiracy. The union could easily have gotten ahead of the story, once the news of Akau’s arrest and indictment had broken, at least with a public statement expressing shock and dismay, perhaps even by having its attorney investigate from the union’s side how this could have happened, how it might have been detected, and to make recommendations of how to prevent similar incidents in the future.