Jurors in the racketeering trial of former Honolulu business owner, Mike Miske, have heard testimony about several assaults allegedly committed by or ordered by Miske. This one was all business.

On Friday, February 23, they heard testimony about the assault of an employee of a termite treatment company that competed with Miske’s Kamaaina Termite.

Roger Usan, an employee of Terminix, a national pest control company with an extensive local presence, testified about an incident that occurred on March 24, 2011.

Usan said that at that time, he would use an “evidence book” when making sales pitches to prospective clients. The book showed problems with the work of rival companies, including Kamaaina Termite, as a way to steer clients to Terminix.

He testified that he received a call on his work cell phone from someone using the name “Kevin” who was shopping for termite treatment and asked Usan to stop and talk with him.

Usan said he went to the address Kevin had given him, and found the house was for sale. When he went in, and was met by two men. One, the larger man, punched him in the face and kicked him, knocking him to the ground. Usan hit his head in the fall.

“Don’t ever fuck with Kamaaina,” the man said, before he and his partner drove off.

Usan said that the next day, he received a telephone call. The caller, who Usan insists was Miske, said: “Sorry about what happened to you yesterday. Use that book again and you will be in a wheelchair.”

Usan said he had no doubt the second call was from Miske.

But, he said, he didn’t mention Miske or Kamaaina Termite when he spoke to police about the incident, a point that Miske’s attorney underscored during cross examination.

Usan explained he had been afraid to point to Miske or his business.

“I feared for my life, and my family. That’s why I didn’t mention Mike Miske,” he said.

The police officer who responded to the assault said Usan was disoriented and bleeding from a contusion on the top of his head. He was wearing a green Terminix polo shirt, and was being treated by EMS.

The officer took Usan’s verbal statement while he was being treated, in which Usan said “Kevin” had claimed he using Kamaaina Termite and was unhappy with their work, but had previously been a Terminix client.

A Queen’s Emergency Room doctor said Usan’s injuries were consistent with an assault, and that he had done a CT scan and x-rays of injuries to Usan’s head, spine, body, and both knees, and had administered a drug for pain. Asked about the complications of this kind of head injury, the physician said they could include headaches, dizziness, seizures, vertigo, sleep disorders, and cognitive impairment. He said longer term follow-up would be necessary to determine if Usan had suffered a brain injury that would be considered a “substantial bodily injury.”

Miske’s lead attorney, Michael Kennedy, cross examined Usan and again established he had not mention Miske to the police, and that he never mentioned this until he was interviewed by the FBI in 2016. He also asked whether Terminix had later directed him not to use the evidence book. Yes, Usan replied.

So it was the company policy to discontinue its use? Again, Usan answered “yes.”

In cross examination of the emergency room physician, Kennedy probed the seriousness of Usan’s injuries.

“You were asked about what you saw, but you weren’t asked about what you didn’t see,” Kennedy said, including brain bleed, skull fracture, neck injury, spleen injury, and mesoteric injury.

And none of these were found? The doctor answered, “Correct.”

Kennedy’s questions, and the answers given, are significant because an assault must result in “serious bodily injury” to be considered a crime under the Racketeer Infuenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is the basis for many of the charges against Miske.

Serious bodily injury is defined as an injury which involves a substantial risk of death, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or the “protracted” loss or impairment of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.

The incident Usan describes is consistent with what one of Miske’s longtime managers told federal investigators when he became a confidential informant in 2015.

The informant told investigators Miske had “previously assaulted a Terminix salesman (T1) for providing potential clients with bad reviews of KTPC (Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control.”

The informant recalled that during a staff meeting one morning, a Kamaaina salesman told Miske about the rival salesman’s tactic.

“Miske was angry,” the informant said, and eventually identified the other company’s salesman as Usan.

“Several weeks later, CI#6 heard that MISKE and some of his ‘boys’ located Tl and brutally beat him,” according to the affidavit of an investigator submitted in support of a search warrant.

The informant, CI#6, reported he had asked two Kamaaina employees, Alfredo Cabael and Andrea “Andi” Kaneakua, about the assault.

Cabael reportedly confirmed the assault, and said that Usan “won’t be talking about KTPC anymore.”

Several days later, Cabael was identified by a former M Nightclub bartender as one of the men who assaulted him on Miske’s orders because Miske suspected the victim had been taking money from the bar receipts. Cabael was described in other FBI documents as a good friend of Miske’s who was believed to do his “dirty work.”

Kaneakua was a longtime employee of Miske’s companies who prosecutors have identified as “an unindicted Miske Enterprise co-conspirator.” She also had a long-term personal relationship and lived with Miske, and his son, Caleb, for a number of years. She was a supervisor in the office of Kamaaina Termite and Kamaaina Plumbing by 2005, court records show, and later was listed as an officer of Kamaaina Plumbing and at least one other Miske company.

More information about this case could be presentned later. A former manager for Kamaaina Termite fitting the description of CI#6, who told the FBI about the beating of Usan, is on the list of potential witnesses, along with Cabael, Kaneakua, and Elton Santos, the Kamaaina Termite employee who first told Miske that a Terminix salesman was spreading derogatory information about Kamaaina.