This week, the jury in the racketeering trial of former Honolulu business owner Michael J. Miske Jr. has heard several witnesses describing assaults carried out by Miske or at his direction.

The situations were different, but the stories of assaults and threats were quite similar. The victims included: an employee at another nightclub who was the ex-boyfriend of Miske’s girlfriend at the time; a high school student pursued through the streets of Kalihi after a run-in with Miske at St. Louis High School; and an employee at a competitor of Miske’s Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control whose sales pitch to prospective customers included negative information about Kamaaina.

And then there was the assault of a bartender who was working at Miske’s M Nightclub in 2011.

David Bass, now 40, said he had worked at Oceans808, a nightclub in Honolulu’s Waterfront Plaza, formerly known as Restaurant Row. Bass remained after the business was sold to Miske and Jason Yokoyama, and went through a couple of name changes before operating as the M Nightclub. He had also been a technician for a company selling point of sale systems, and worked briefly for a local computer company.

His story is chilling.

Bass testified he was getting ready for his shift behind the bar one evening in the summer of 2011 when Yokoyama, M’s manager and, on paper at least, its co-owner, said Miske wanted to see him. Miske then told him he was looking at a used point of sale system from a friend whose restaurant was closing, and asked if Bass would take a look at it, and assist with any tech issues. Of course, Bass agreed.

When Bass said he had to let his manager know he was leaving the club, Miske responded, “no need, you’re with me, we’ll go real fast. Don’t worry, you’re with me.”

They exited a back door just as a black Cadillac Escalade SUV pulled up. Miske got front with the driver, while Bass found himself sitting in back between “two refrigerator sized guys, over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds each.”

One was all “jacked up” like The Rock, while the other was big but not as “cut,” Bass said.

“I was immediately worried because I was sandwiched in, and they didn’t look like technicians,” Bass said.

Instead of going to a friend’s house, they drove to Sand Island, and finally stopped near the ocean and everyone got out of the vehicle except the driver.

Bass said they stood in the SUV’s headlights with Miske in front of him, while he had one refrigerator guy on either side of him, “like a triangle.”

Miske then angrily accused Bass stealing from the bar receipts, and said he had to pay back $10,000.

Bass told him, “I don’t want to lose my job,” and Miske laughed. Then he gave a signal, a smirk and a nod, and Bass said the two refrigerator guys then beat him up.

He said he was hit multiple times in the face, neck, head, body, hit in both eye, and the beating continued even after he fell to the ground. He said they were “full throttle hits.”

After 45 seconds or a minute, Bass was lifted up, and Miske told him, “You owe me $10,000.” When Bass said he didn’t have money like that, Miske told him to pay in $100 installments.

The came Miske’s threat.

“I know where you live, I know where your girlfriend lives, so don’t call the cops.” He then took Bass’s phone and threw it into the ocean. Miske told Bass to turn around, face the ocean, and get down on his knee. He then pushed Bass’s head down, and they drove off, leaving Bass on the shore in darkness, bleeding, eyes swollen lip bleeding, missing a shoe, and covered in sand.

He began walking, and reached La Marianna restaurant, which was closed, but he was able to use the phone and call his girlfriend.

He didn’t go to the hospital, despite his injuries, and didn’t call the police, because he was afraid of Miske, and took his threat seriously.

Bass said he ran into Miske a couple of times several years later. The first time he was working at a Japanese restaurant in Waikiki, and bought Miske a bottle of sake in an attempt “to bury the hatchet.”

The second time Miske and the woman he was with were leaving the restaurant when Miske walked back to where Bass was standing.

“Don’t think I fucking forgot,” Bass recalled Miske saying. “I realized this was still a thing,” Bass said.

Then in March 2014, he suffered a detached retina and had emergency surgery to save his vision. It was successful in the short run, but then it became “a lazy eye,” Bass said.

The retina specialist who performed the surgery attributed it to previous trauma.

Then in 2023, the eye had to be removed, and Bass received a prosthetic eye.

Bass said the first time he spoke to law enforcement about Miske was just last year.

While on the witness stand, Bass identified photographs of those involved in the Sand Island incident, including Miske and two others, Andrew Kim and Alfredo Cabael.

Neither Kim nor Cabael have been charged in this case, or for anything connected with the assault on Bass.

However, both have multiple links to Miske.

Kim’s girlfriend worked at Miske’s M Nightclub, and in 2014 had set up a business to sell food outside the entrance to the club. The company apparently never got off the ground, and it was administratively terminated by the state after failing to file required reports for three years.

Wayne Miller, at one time considered Miske’s top lieutenant, told FBI agents in 2019 that Kim was prepared to help distribute more than 20 pounds of cocaine Miller planned to purchase from a Mexican cartel group in Los Angeles in 2014, using $300,000 to $400,000 in cash allegedly put up by Miske. The deal was broken up when local police and federal drug agents stopped a 3-car caravan escorting Miller and Michael Buntenbah, and the drugs, to the San Francisco airport where a corrupt TSA agent was prepared to smuggle the drugs past a security checkpoint.

Cabael had previously been identified as one of a group of men providing “muscle” for Miske, along with Stancil, Mike Buntenbah, and Wayne Miller.

Other documents previously filed in court show federal investigators believed Cabael was Miske’s “go to guy” who did his “dirty work.” Cabael was also the owner’s representative for the fishing vessel “Rachel,” which was purchased by one of Miske’s closely held companies in December 2010. It was sold by court order in 2021, with the proceeds of the sale going into an escrow account.

According to a law enforcement affidavit submitted in support of a 2016 search warrant, Cabael has a lengthy criminal record, with 30 arrests between August 1990 and July 2015 “for abuse of a family member, reckless driving, terroristic threatening, drunk driving, theft, criminal trespassing, and burglary.”

During cross examination of Bass, Miske lead attorney, Michael Kennedy, bore in on Bass’s failure to call the police, file a police report, or to mention the assault when he finally sought medical care and underwent eye surgery. In questioning, including cross examination of the surgeon who did the retina surgery, they then suggested the eye injury couldn’t be definitely attributed to the attack on Sand Island, and that Bass could possibly have been injured without realizing it while practicing “grappling” at a 24 Hour Fitness.

[This story is based on notes and observations of a volunteer attending the trial on February 28, 2024 to help keep the public informed.]