Part 1: Rags to riches?

It was the beginning of 2018.  James Harold Hall and his daughters had been living rent free as squatters in a series of Hawaii Kai homes for 6-1/2 years, and were now awaiting imminent eviction from the  2,460 square-foot waterfront home on Kumukahi Place in Hawaii Kai where they had resided since mid-2013.

Their string of squats had started in 2011, when the family ran out of money and could no longer afford rent. Instead, Hall moved them into a vacant house nearby, the first in a series of empty homes where they lived without authorization.

Since then, the family had been evicted from two other homes, and were now “being threatened momentarily with eviction by a court-appointed foreclosure commissioner,” Hall’s attorney at the time, Gary Victor Dubin, wrote in a last-ditch appeal to the Hawaii Supreme Court to block this foreclosure and eviction. 

The high court was not moved and declined to hear the case. The Halls were ejected from the property not long afterwards.

But less than nine months later, Hall’s finances appear to have remarkably improved. 

In September 2018, Hall bought Greentree Properties LLC, a Nevada company, for $3 million from Dubin, the attorney who had been representing him. Greentree’s primary assset was the large residence at 91 Coelho Way in Nuuanu, court records show.

It was just the latest curious transaction in the history of the property, which was suddenly thrust into the news last April, and became a matter of public interest, when 29-year old Linden Myeni was shot and killed by police as he exited the home.

Built on spec

The 1/2 acre property at 91 Coelho Way, with an older three-bedroom home, was purchased by developer Larry Clapp in July 1989 for $850,000, real estate records show. 

At the time, Clapp was president of WDC Venture, which operated the International Marketplace in Waikiki, and served as chairman of the Waikiki Improvement Association. Clapp, known as a friend and supporter of then-Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi, was also chairman of the Honolulu Mass Transit Coalition, an organization formed to lobby construction of a rail system that had been a long-time goal of the mayor.

Clapp immediately applied for a building permit for a new 8,467 square foot, two-story home on the property.  The finished home was even larger, with a reported 10,215 sq.ft. under roof, and was quickly listed for sale at $6.3 million.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported rather breathlessly in February 1991 that the home had been sold to the president of an unnamed Japanese company for $5.5 million.  According to the newspaper’s account, the home had “six bedrooms, a circular staircase, 22-foot high ceilings, a marble fireplace, an oak library and two-story entry/porte cochere.” The sale was said to be taking place despite what was a generally slow market for luxury properties.

But the optimistic tone proved premature. The sale fell through and the property was relisted with a $6.6 million price tag. This time around, the property lingered on the market and failed to attract another top-dollar offer.

An offshore tax haven

The home was finally sold in early 1993 via an agreement of sale to the Coelho Way Corp., a foreign corporation registered in the Cook Islands, which has marketed itself globally as a tax haven for several decades.

Coelho Way Corporation agreed to pay $200,000 in cash, and to take over outstanding 1st, 2nd, and 3rd mortgages, for a total purchase price of $2,657,174, just 40% of the asking price, real estate records show.

Little is known about the company, which was never registered to do business in Hawaii, according to state business registration records.

However, signing for the Coelho Way Corp. was Jeffrey A. Dunster, who held a special  power of attorney to represent the company in this transaction.

Dunster is a former stock broker who was licensed to work in the financial industry for five years, from October 1984 to July 1989, according to online records of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). 

He was censured, briefly suspended, and fined $75,000 plus costs of $1,848.42 by the National Association of Securities Dealers in March 1990 for violating of financial industry rules while working for Pan Oceanic Investments, Inc.  In July  1990, Dunster was expelled from NASD for failing to pay the fine.

There are no public records tying Dunster to the Coelho Way Corporation except for the 1993 Special Power of Attorney. But information confirming a link between Dunster and the Cook Island company can be found in the Offshore Leaks Database, a collection of documents on more than 800,000 offshore entities disclosed by a series of data breaches that exposed financial information hidden from governments and taxing authorities around the world.

In 1996, Coelho Way Corporation paid off the agreement of sale and took full title to the property, with Jeffrey Dunster still listed as the company’s representative.

Dunster and his family enjoyed a lavish lifestyle consistent with the property, which also served as Dunster’s business address, while title was held by the Coelho Way Corp, court records show.

During this period, Dunster occupied the property rent free in exchange for providing “property management and caretaker services,” according to administrative findings by the Attorney General’s Office of Child Support in 2001 following a nasty divorce from his former wife, Natalie. The agency put a conservative value of the free rent in the $3 million home at $6,000 per month, but indicated it could have been valued at more than $8,000 monthly. 

During their divorce proceedings, Natalie maintained Dunster had suggested putting their property into the Cook Island trust, and she had agreed, but was later stunned to discover she had no legal claim on the joint property because it was legally held in the name of the Coelho Way Corporation. 

Natalie Dunster argued the home had belonged to both of them, they had been free to make any changes they wanted to it, and there was  never any other person or company to seek permission from. It was, she said, their home. 

But despite her attempts to claim the home as joint property to be divided in the divorce settlement, the court determined it was exempt corporate property, because it could not be linked directly to Dunster due to the Cook Islands’ corporate secrecy laws. 

After Natalie and Jeffrey divorced, he remarried. In August 2004, the property was snared by another odd transaction. 

Denise Dunster, Jeff Dunster’s next wife, encumbered the house with a fraudulent 20-year lease to Unity Chapel, a newly registered nonprofit organization, for $2,400 per year. It was apparently the sign of a major rift in the couple’s marriage.

The new lease was signed by Denise Dunster, who signed as “authorized agent” for the Coelho Way Corporation. State business registration records show Denise Dunster was also listed as the registered agent for Unity Chapel.

Jeffrey Dunster filed for divorce from Denise Dunster in July 2005.

The following year, Jeff Dunster took action to reclaim the property. In December 2006, while divorce proceedings were still underway, Unity Chapel and Coelho Way Corporation signed off on an agreement cancelling the lease, according to documents filed in the Bureau of Conveyances. The parties agreed Denise Dunster never had “any capacity or position or authority to execute a lease on behalf of Coelho Way Corporation.”  Unity Chapel also agreed to pay Coelho Way Corp. $60,000 within twelve months.

A Las Vegas two-step

In 2007, the home on Coelho Way appeared to change hands again, but separating appearance from reality in this case is difficult. 

The property was transferred in two quick transactions involving Nevada companies, both associated with Honolulu foreclosure attorney Gary Dubin, who had represented Dunster in several cases during his divorces from wives Natalie and Denise, and who later represented James Hall. Dubin has since been disbarred by order of the Hawaii Supreme Court.

In the first transaction, title was transfered from Coelho Way Corp. to Nuu Corporation, a Nevada Corporation registered at an address in Henderson, NV., by warranty deed recorded on April 20, 2007.

The sole officer of Nuu Corporation was Long Vu, according to Nevada Corporate Records. 

Long Huy Vu is a 2006 graduate of the University of Hawaii’s William Richardson Law School who was employed by the Dubin Law Office, which Dubin controlled as sole proprietor. Vu was first employed as a paralegal, and later, after earning his law degree and passing the Hawaii Bar, as one of the firm’s attorneys.

Dubin and Vu were listed as the controlling members of S&R Mortgage Company LLC, which was registered with the state’s Business Registration Division later in 2007. It also used the address of Dubin’s law firm as its business address.

Less than three weeks after it was transferred to Nuu Corp., title to the Coelho Way home was transferred again, this time to Greentree Properties, LLC., another Nevada company. 

Greentree had been formed for the sole purpose of holding title to the Coelho Way property, according to Dubin’s sworn statements filed in state court as part of a subsequent lawsuit. Greentree  was registered in Nevada on May 1, 2007 by Dubin, who was Greentree’s sole member and owner, as well as Vu’s employer. Greentree Properties was never registered to do business in Hawaii, state business registration records show.

The following month, in June 2007, Greentree Properties obtained a $2 million mortgage loan from Wells Fargo Bank, secured by the Coelho Way property. Dubin signed the mortgage note on behalf of Greentree Properties LLC, and also as personal guarantor of the loan.

His personal signature on the mortgage note left Dubin “fully and personally” liable in the event of a default, along with Greentree.

The Coelho Way Corporation was dissolved in January 2009 following the transfer of the property, according to a document from the Financial Supervisory Commission of the Cook Islands filed with the state Bureau of Conveyances.

While Jeffrey Dunster no longer held legal title, he continued to live at Coelho Way rent free, and to operate his businesses from the home, with Dubin’s consent, for another 11 years, court records show. 

In a subsequent lawsuit, Dunster’s business was described as operating through “a network of related or affiliated entities, including Defendants Legacy Carbon, LLC dba Hawaiian Legacy Carbon, Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative dba Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods dba Hawaiian Legacy Forests fka Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods, LLC, Legacy Hardwoods, Inc. fka Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods, Inc., and Legacy Holdings, LLC fka Hawaiian Legacy Holdings, LLC.…”

In February 2017, Greentree obtained a $500,000 2nd mortgage loan from Kauai developer Greg Kamm, which again was personally guaranteed by Dubin.

At the time, Dubin was responding to several complaints being investigated by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel in 2016, and the matters were scheduled for an ODC hearing in November 2017.

Tomorrow: Part 2

See also:

“The hotel next door,” iLind.net, October 12, 2021

“The squatters next door,” iLind.net, January 20, 2022