Another of Mike Miske’s co-defendants, Harry K. Kauhi (aka “Harry Boy”) pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court. My story on the plea agreement behind the guilty plea was posted over at Civil Beat late Thursday afternoon (“Kauhi’s Guilty Plea Strengthens The Conspiracy Case Against Mike Miske/Prosecutors have now wrapped up plea deals with at least 10 members or associates of what is being referred to as the Miske Enterprise“).

He’s the third of Miske’s co defendants to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors and agree to testify against Miske and other former associates.

And at least seven others who were involved in what prosecutors are calling the Miske Enterprise were charged separately from the Miske case, and have also pleaded guilty and are cooperating. Several of those appear to have been well placed to testify about the internal workings of Miske’s organization. And I expect other plea deals are in the works as the reality of potentially lengthy prison sentences comes into focus as the trial, now scheduled for September, gets closer.

In response to questions by Judge Derrick Watson, Kauhi said he had graduated from high school, and was last employed as a member of Teamsters Local 996, which represents drivers in the film industry. Miske was also a Local 996 driver, as was his half-brother and co-defendant, John Stancil.

As I explain in the story, Kauhi didn’t have the extensive criminal record like some other defendants had racked up, although he was convicted on multiple felonies as a result of an early morning altercation at Sandy Beach in August 1999, a month before his 20th birthday.

I provided a brief description of the 1999 incident at the end of the Civil Beat story, as well as a capsule reference to two prior arrests involving threatened or actual violence. You can read those at Civil Beat.

However, two of Kauhi’s uncles–his father’s brothers–each have long histories of violent crimes.

In November 1994, Kauhi’s uncles, Harry Kauhi, Jr. and Samson Kauhi, took part in a home invasion robbery of a home on Rycroft Street in lower Makiki. Harry was the lookout, while Samson and a female accomplice entered the home, where Samson brutally beat and strangled a 74-year old woman, who died at the scene. Samson was convicted of murder, while Harry and the accomplice were convicted of burglary.

Harry, the uncle, served five years and was released in 2001. The following year, he was arrested for breaking into a home in Enchanted Lakes, armed with a shotgun, and assaulting a 22-year old man. At one point, he aimed the shotgun at the man’s stomach and pulled the trigger, but the gun failed to fire. He was convicted of terroristic threatening and three firearms violations,

And this wasn’t their first rodeo. In 1989, the brothers were charged with with robbing a 71-year old man after a traffic incident in Kailua, according to an article in the Honolulu Advertiser. And, seven years earlier, Samson was sentenced to a life term for a robbery of a visiting judge and his family at Makapuu.

“The sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Hawaii Supreme Court, which ruled a person cannot be sentenced on multiple robbery counts if property is taken from only one person,” the Advertiser reported.

See:

“Kauhi’s Guilty Plea Strengthens The Conspiracy Case Against Mike Miske“, Civil Beat, January 7, 2022.

“A Surprise Revelation In The Miske Case: A Plot To Kill A Union Official,” Civil Beat, June 14, 2021.

“The Miske Case: A Co-Defendant Turns Against Alleged Honolulu Crime Boss“, Civil Beat, May 10, 2021

“Miske Case Weaves Together Disparate Strands Of Past Crimes,” Civil Beat, January 10, 2021.