“Another co-defendant in the federal case against alleged racketeering kingpin Michael J. Miske Jr. appears to be flipping on his former boss and trying to cut a deal with prosecutors, or may already have done so.”

That’s the first sentence of my latest story, published this morning over at Civil Beat (“The Miske Files: Ex-Kamaaina Termite Manager Is Next In Line To Negotiate A Plea/A deal would make Preston Kimoto the seventh of Miske’s original 10 co-defendants to plead guilty and agree to cooperate with prosecutors“).

Kimoto had been free on bond pending trial since a week or so after his July 2020 indictment and arrest along with Miske and nine other co-defendants. But he was rearrested in April and charged with witness tampering, after a he allegedly threatened a witness to one of the crimes he is charged with in an attempt to keep her from talking with FBI investigators.

His latest arrest was on the basis of a criminal complaint which provided “probable cause” for his arrest on the felony charge of witness tampering.
Due to a defendant’s right to a “speedy trial,” the government only has a short period of time to file a felony charge via a grand jury indictment, which requires presenting the case for review by a grand jury, or a criminal “information,” a simpler mechanism that bypasses the need for a grand jury review, but requires the consent of the defendant. Often use of a criminal information signals that a plea agreement is in the works.

After the third postponement of Kimoto’s preliminary hearing and deadline for the government to charge him, it dawned on me that the delay likely means plea negotiations have been underway, and I sat down and wrote this story.

Kimoto’s preliminary hearing is now scheduled for next week, and I’ll be watching for a plea deal to be announced.

If there is a deal, only three of Miske’s original co-defendants will remain: John Stancil, his brother; Dae Han Moon, who was previously convicted of murder in the shooting death of Stevie Feliciano at Ala Moana Center on Christmas 2016; and Jarrin Young, who is charged with being a participant in Miske’s racketeering and drug trafficking conspiracies, and carrying a weapon during a drug-related crime. Two additional defendants, Delia Fabro-Miske and Jason Yokoyama, were added to the case in a 2021 superseding indictment.