I received a tip yesterday that a new “information” had been filed on in federal court on Monday charging Dae Han Moon, one of the remaining co-defendants in the racketeering case against former Kamaaina Termite owner Mike Miske, with two federal felonies.

The document is a brief three pages long, but it says a lot.

It led to my latest story about the case, which is posted at Civil Beat today (“Miske Co-Defendant Charged With 2 Felony Offenses Ahead Of Likely Plea Deal/At 27, Dae Han Moon is the youngest of the 12 co-defendants originally charged in the federal racketeering case“).

Moon has been in federal custody since July 2020, when he was indicted on federal charges and arrested along with Miske and other co-defendants.

So why the new charges, which overlap with the charges he was already facing? What does this mean?

Well, under federal law, prosecutors much bring felony charges by first presenting their case to a federal grand jury, which will make the decision whether or not the evidence is sufficient to proceed. The grand jury is a constitional requirement.

But prosecutors can and do charge defendants without going through the grand jury process when they know the defendant and their attorney will not object. In practice, this type of charge by “information” signals that a plea deal is in the works and is now expected to be finalized.

This was the same clue that led me to write about Preston Kimoto’s expected plea deal before the plea agreement was formally announced. He was charged with a new “information,” and sure enough, about three weeks later, a change of plea hearing was scheduled, and the plea agreement was filed in court at the hearing.

I expect the same thing will be happening here and that Dae Han Moon will become the 8th of Miske’s original 12 co-defendants to have pleaded guilty. And I expect that Moon will have a lot of useful information to share with prosecutors.