I’ve been frustrated for the past week, finding lots of “dots” without being able to figure out what the picture will look like when the dots are finally connected.
Here’s an example.
You may recall that back in April, police officers responding to a 911 call shot and killed a 29-year old from South Africa, Lindani Myeni, outside a home at 91 Coelho Way in lower Nuuanu.
It still isn’t clear what Myeni was doing at the home, or why he attacked the responding officers.
State real property records show the current registered owner of the property is James H. Hall, a former contractor who moved to Hawaii from Wisconsin with his wife and four children at the beginning of 2009, after his business had gone bankrupt and their home was lost through foreclosure.
Records show Hall purchased Greentree Properties LLC, a Nevada company that held title to the Coelho Way property, in September 2018 from Honolulu attorney Gary Dubin, who has since been disbarred by the Hawaii Supreme Court. Three months later, Hall transferred title in the property from Greentree to himself.
A week after the fatal shooting, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported the home had previously been the subject of complaints about illegal short-term rentals.
In 2019 and 2020 the city Department of Planning and Permitting investigated seven complaints that 91 Coelho Way was being used as an illegal short-term rental. Rentals of fewer than 30 days are not allowed at the property, said DPP spokesman Curtis Lum.
In addition, according to the Star-Advertiser, police officers also responded to several other incidents at the home, including a car break-in, a possible COVID violation, a car accident, and a “miscellaneous incident.”
However, the complaints led to a dead end.
“Our investigation determined that the ads were for 30 days or more, which is not a violation,” Lum told Star-Advertiser reporter Peter Boylan. “On-site inspections of the property did not reveal an illegal short-term rental on this property.”
End of story? Apparently not.
What wasn’t known at the time is that the Hall applied for and received received four federal Payroll Protection Program loans during 2020 and 2021 that totaled over $215,000, including two that classed his businesses as operating a hotel or motel.
In each year, separate loans went to Greentree Properties LLC, the Nevada company owned by Hall since 2018, and to a sole proprietorship also owned by Hall, PPP loan records show.
All four loans were made by First National Bank Texas. These were the only PPP loans made by the bank in Hawaii.
Greentree received a PPP loan of $96,656 in 2021. Greentree’s loan application was approved on April 9, just two days before Myeni’s shooting. Despite applying for and receiving the PPP loan, based on a prior year’s payroll, Greentree Properties is not listed among companies registered to do business in Hawaii, state business registration records show.
Hall’s sole proprietorship received $29,165 in 2021, according to the PPP lookup at the website, FederalPay.org. Both company’s applications reported they were in an industry category for “Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels.”
According to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS):
This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing short-term lodging in facilities known as hotels, motor hotels, resort hotels, and motels. The establishments in this industry may offer food and beverage services, recreational services, conference rooms, convention services, laundry services, parking, and other services.
FederalPay.org examined loan eligibility criteria, and estimated the annual payroll of $464,000 was required to qualify for the loan awarded to Greentree Properties in 2021.
The size of company’s PPP loan indicates that the number of employees on payroll during the eligibility calculation period (typically 2019) was higher than the 4 jobs reported as retained on the PPP application3. This could be caused by a reduction in employment since 2019, due to Coronavirus or other factors.
The minimum number of employees this company must have had in 2019 to qualify for the loan range received is 5. This estimation is accurate if all employees were paid at or over the $100k PPP salary eligibility cap….
Based on the standard PPP eligibility formula, it may be possible to estimate the payroll expenses represented by a company on their PPP application (see details above). In order to qualify for the PPP loan amount received, Greentree Properties LLC’s 2019 payroll expenses are estimated to be at least $463,949 (not accounting for salary amounts > $100k).
In the earlier round of PPP loans distributed in 2020, Hall received a loan of $20,800, while Greentree received a loan of $69,000. Both companies listed themselves in a different category, this one defined as “other services to buildings and dwellings.”
“This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing services to buildings and dwellings (except exterminating and pest control; janitorial; landscaping care and maintenance; and carpet and upholstery cleaning),” according to the NAICS definition.
Examples of the types of services in this category include building exterior cleaning services (except sandblasting, window cleaning), swimming pool cleaning and maintenance services, chimney cleaning services, ventilation duct cleaning services, and drain or gutter cleaning services.
Greentree Properties LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, had been established in 2007 by former Honolulu attorney Gary Victor Dubin to hold title to the Coelho Way property. Dubin had sole control of Greentree from 2007 until September 2018, when he reportedly sold his interest in the company to Hall, court records show.
Then on November 26, 2018, Hall, now acting as the sole member of Greentree, executed a quit-claim deed transferring title to the Coelho Way property from the company to himself personally. Honolulu real property records now list Hall as the property’s sole owner.
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the stories about dubin were not of much interest to me before. but as you begin to connect these dots, it becomes more interesting and more stinky! so much duplicity and corruption to keep these kine engines running, all for money…
Wow! So glad you’re looking into and reporting on this. Thank you! I did a bunch of amateur sleuthing on this when the story came out. It looked to me then that this home was likely being used as an illegal vacation rental. Your professional sleuthing found a lot more information. The PPP loan bit is huge!
Very sad that the Dept of Planning & Permitting investigated and said “…that the ads were for 30 days or more”, so it wasn’t illegal. Did they look at the rental contracts themselves, or interview tenants who stayed there? I’ll bet that they would have found less than 30 day actual stays, no matter what the ads stated.
At the time, it looked to me like lots of relevant information was being withheld by both the widow and the homeowner concerning the tragic Myeni situation. I don’t believe his spouse/widow was forthcoming about everything about Myeni that day (understandable, to some extent, as she was in pain, shock and angry). Also, the homeowner, Hall & company, did not tell the true story about the house’s rental history. As a result, I still don’t think we know what really happened that brought Myeni to that house that day. Sure hope you keep digging…
Hi Dave,
I’m Lindsay Myeni, the “widow”. I’m sitting here reading this as I’m watching tv with Lindani’s son, in South Africa.
I grew up in Honolulu, but don’t feel safe there anymore, for obvious reasons.
So, I’ve never been back since.
I spoke about the case at a press conference and did some interviews while in Hawai’i, but after they released his body two wks later, I left to South Africa and did interviews there after. You can find those online or info on my Youtube if you’re curious about the case.
I have a strong idea of why Lindani passed by our neighbors illegal BNB that day, but even if people understood we were on a royal Hawaiian cultural sight seeing day that day and that King Kamehameha sign on the main road leads you to 91 Coelho, by the time I explain myself people have already decided in their minds which polar side they’re on — cops or a black mans.
And in my experience, my beautiful fellow citizens of Hawai’i seem to be 50/50 on who is perceived as innocent. Even though for me in my shoes, I know my husband better than anyone in this world, you can’t tell me he changed personalities and all of a sudden went from community leader/athlete/singer to “attacker” within the 18 minutes from when I spoke to him and he was on his way home to when they shot him.
I literally texted him a picture of dinner on the table waiting for him, by that time he was already killed.
We only lived 5 blocks away on Alewa Dr.
Whether he was at a historical Hawaiian site in his mind or an illegal BNB in reality, he deserved to live and speak.
They came with military grade flashlights, no police lights or sirens, and snuck up on him with guns drawn. That’s a use of force. When he asked “who are you? who are you?”
Instead of them saying “police”, they said “f*** it, shoot him”. After the one cleans his gun and says “f*** I couldn’t see.” So obviously, neither could Lindani.
If he wasn’t blinded with a flashlight maybe he could see them creep up in the dark to tell that they were police, but here in South Africa that whole scene spells a hijacking. Who else calls you out of your car as your about to leave and shouts get on the ground, not saying who they were.
I’m proud of him fighting back and almost successfully defending himself.
Really three cops with guns were afraid of one unarmed man who was speaking calmly? He never didn’t show respect. He announced his name and took off his shoes to go in the BNB which had several cars parked outside and looked like a place of business, because it was.
He didn’t even hit until he saw a gun pointed at him. Are you going to tell me you were going to run or lay on the ground like a dog when someone’s perceivably going to take your car?
They knew his name when they arrived on scene, that he was from South Africa, that he had done no harm, that he was unarmed. Why did they creep up with guns in the night?
He was shot four times within less than a minute of meeting them. To me, I can’t find a way to justify that. Even if he wasn’t my husband and best friend I’m missing every day.
My goodness. Amazing what people do to get money. Thanks, Ian, for digging into the matter.
Good work Ian. That is really shady behavior. I missed the reasons Dubin was disbarred but sounds like a cast of characters all the way around
Ian this is super interesting you should go to a wider audience. Like the Guardian website or Huffpost. This is a story with legs!
It’s sad that that paid public and civil servants, the bureaucracy it represents is so ass-backwards.
I’d say fire everyone and hire the top 10 students of every high school in Hawaii to run the City. It can only be better than what we have today. Blessings for your hard work and determination to seeking facts, figures, in connecting the dots.
Hall is exactly the type to go after a COVID loan.
Did Hall pay all the state taxes on his “hotel and 30 day rentals”?
The few comments I have made publicly I got completely bashed for…. But let me just say that I do support the police. Maybe not the ones that I have had personal interactions with. The ones that show up 4 cars strong to a complaint about an old fat lady feeding feral cats ( with permission since 1996 ). But in general – I support them and think they have a hard job. This tragedy would never have happened if he showed up at my front door. I would have known right away something was not right. ” MO ” is the code that they use on the radio at the zoo ( according to my sister ). It is short for ” Mentally Off “. I would never have called the cops until I jumped over the back fence and ran to my neighbor house. This was a short term rental and no one really knew who belonged – or who didn’t belong – or who belonged to guest that were gone…. I think this was a tragedy and feel bad for his wife and kids.
Actually in Honolulu Police Department jargon “MO” means “mental observation”. At least it did when I was a police dispatcher decades ago. Having worked with the police, I know that there were extraordinarily strong, dedicated officers working alongside deadbeats with inferiority and grievance issues. The union blocks sorting the good from the bad so you never know who will show up. Therefore, it is imperative to stay calm and not provoke them, especially if you are haole or Pacific Islander. And the police can never receive enough training in how to deal with people who are mentally lacking control, whether from drugs, alcohol, illness, or even political derangement.
Hall originally met Dubin when Dubin represented Hall (a squatter) in an effort to steal the house of a Hawaii Kai man who had killed himself. It took a lot of effort for the children to push Hall out.
The former Law Firm known as Dubin & Waihee.
Governor Waihee’s former partner Eugene K. O. Lum. A.k.a. “Dubious Law”!/
Hi Ian Lind,
I’m Lindsay (his widow), he was Lindani, our parents were both “Lind’s” too, so I found it cool to see an iLind website.
I appreciate this article and the other one on Coelho Way that I saw you wrote. I’m glad you did the research, I, myself was looking into the history behind the house. Moreso, to see if it was in fact originally one of the Hawaiian royal houses, as there are many in Nu’uanu.
I still love Nu’uanu and the beautiful presence of my home island, but I don’t know if I’ll ever come back since my husband was murdered by cops. And they’re still working on the force.
In the meantime, the more I learn about the history, the more bit of peace I feel.