Two of Mike Miske’s original ten co-defendants, Dae Han Moon and Jarrin Young, pleaded guilty in October 2023 in plea deals with prosecutors. Both were sentenced earlier this year.

Both had been charged via “information” separate from the charges in the Miske case. Charges filed by Information do not require a grand jury indictment, but are only used when the defendant agrees to proceed without indictment. This is typically a prelude to a negotiated guilty plea. In these cases, Moon and Young pleaded guilty to the Information, and their original charges in the Miske case were then dismissed.

Most of the other co-defendants who have pleaded guilty also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against Miske. Their sentencings have been deferred until after the trial is over, and it can be determined whether they complied with their agreement to cooperate fully.

Young, 29, had been listed last among the original 11 defendants indicted in the summer of 2020, indicating that prosecutors believed he was the least serious offender.

He pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to distribute and possess, with intent to distribute, a quantity of methamphetamine.” In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop the three original charges against him, which included racketeering conspiracy and two drug trafficking charges that would have carried 10-year minimum sentences on conviction.

“Defendant Young has admitted his participation in two drug trafficking episodes during the month of May 2018 – one involving one ounce of methamphetamine, and the other involving 1/8 of an ounce of methamphetamine,” according to a sentencing memo filed by Young’s attorney, William L. Shipley Jr.

The memo went on:

Defendant Young was named in the RICO indictment of Michael Miske–someone he had never met prior to his arrest. He had never met most of the defendants in the various cases that involved Miske in one manner or another. He crossed paths in Windward Oahu with various individuals engaged in illegal activities, some of whom are named in court documents in this case. But the allegation in the various indictments that he was part of a “racketeering enterprise” with others, and allegedly directed by Miske, has always been a charge that left him confused and befuddled….

Young was sentenced on January 23, 2024, to the time he had already served since his arrest in 2020, approximately 42 months. This was longer than the sentence recommended in a pre-sentence report to the judge, which calculated the appropriate range of 30 to 37 months under federal sentencing guidelines. In light of the sentence to time already served, Judge Derrick Watson ordered Young to be released “forthwith.” He will now spend three years on supervised release and reportedly join his mother and siblings, who are now living in Georgia, where he hopes to rebuild his life.

Dae Han Moon, 27, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire conspiracy, and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug-related crime.

Mike Miske reportedly offered thousands of dollars to Moon and others to kill a Waimanalo man suspected of providing information about Miske to law enforcement.

Others who took part in the murder plot, along with Moon, were John Stancil, Harry Kauhi, Jacob “Jake” Smith, Wayne Miller, and Lance Bermudez. All except Miske have pleaded guilty and admitted being part of this murder-for-hire conspiracy, which was ultimately unsuccessful. No one was injured and the “hit” was later called off.

Moon was sentenced to 34 months in prison on the murder-for-hire conspiracy charge, and 60 months on the firearm charge, to run consecutively for a total of 94 months, or 7 years and 8 months.

Court minutes show the shorter term will run concurrently with a state prison term for an incident in early December 2016, the same incident that led to the federal firearm charge. The 60-month federal term will run consecutively to the state charge for that offense. His sentence also includes 3 years supervised release on the first count, and 5 years on the second count, to run concurrently.

At the time he was arrested and charged in the Miske case, Moon was already serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole in state prison for the murder of Stevie Feliciano in a deserted parking lot at Ala Moana Center on Christmas evening in 2016. Court minutes of the federal sentencing do not indicate how the new federal sentences will impact the sentence in his murder case, if it has any effect at all.