Norman Lani Akau III, a 52-year old Kaneohe man, was the 11th co-defendant of the late racketeering boss Michael J. Miske Jr. to appear before Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu’s Federal District Court for sentencing.

Akau had been indicted and arrested in July 2020 along with Miske and nine other co-defendants for their roles in Miske’s sprawling racketeering organization, which prosecutors dubbed the Miske Enterprise. Two additional defendants were added in a superseding indictment. The charges including participating in a racketeering conspiracy controlled and directed by Miske, with racketeering acts ranging from murder, kidnapping, and assaults to drug trafficking, fraud, and obstruction of justice. By the time Miske’s trial began in January 2024, all of his former co-defendants had pleaded guilty, including Miske’s half-brother, John Stancil, and most defendants ended up cooperating with prosecutors.

Miske was convicted by the federal jury on 13 counts, and after a separate trial, the jury also held that his personal and business assets should be forfeited to the government as proceeds of his various criminal acts. Miske died while held in Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center of an apparent accidental fentanyl overdose in December 2024.

Over the course of Akau’s 90-minute sentencing hearing this week, attended by many members of the Akau family, he learned a painful lesson: If you renege on a deal with the government, there will be unpleasant consequences.

That’s the situation Akau found himself in after saying one thing to get the benefits of a plea bargain, but giving sworn testimony during Miske’s trial last year that directly contradicted the admissions in his plea deal.

Akau has already served nearly five years since his indictment and arrest in July 2020, and might have qualified for a quick release if he had received the average 8-level downward departure from sentencing guidelines granted to other defendants who cooperated.

Instead, Judge Watson sentenced Akau to a prison term of 168 months, a full 14 years. That means it will be another nine years before Akau is freed, after which he will serve three years on supervised release.

The background

Akau pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in June 2021 and agreed to cooperate with the government in their prosecution of Miske and others.

Akau was only the second of Miske’s 12 co-defendants to plead guilty and flip. And he provided key information to prosecutors by disclosing he had been solicited twice by a distant cousin, Wayne Miller, who was for a time Miske’s top lieutenant, who conveyed Miske’s offers of $50,000 to take part in a pair of murder-for-hire plots.

Akau said he turned down an offer of cash in early 2016 to kill Jonathan Fraser, who Miske blamed for the high-speed crash that led to his son’s death. Later, he agreed to help murder an ILWU official who was blocking Miske’s former access to lucrative stevedoring jobs used to reward Miske’s criminal associates. Although this murder plot was called off at the last minute, Akau had been the designated triggerman, and he tied Miske directly to the murder plan.

In exchange for his testimony, prosecutors agreed to dismiss several additional charges that could have carried long sentences, and left the door open to the possibility of further leniency in sentencing in exchange for his early cooperation.

But when called to testify as a witness at Miske’s trial last year, Akau changed his tune and repeatedly failed to confirm what he had previously told prosecutors.

At the time, prosecutors gave no indication of a conflict between Akau’s admissions in his plea agreement and his later trial testimony directly denying those statements.

But Tuesday proved to be his day of reckoning.

“Significant assistance”

Before the sentencing hearing got underway, Akau and a dozen or more family members present in court might have had some hope that he would soon be released to resume his role as husband, father, and primary provider for his family, owner of a small air conditioning business, and active member IATSE, the union representing stagehands and other off-camera workers in Hawaii’s film industry, where he had been elected to three terms on the local union’s executive board.

Akau’s attorney, Arizona-based Ramiro Salazar Flores, Jr., argued a 5-year sentence would be appropriate because of the significant assistance Akau had provided the government.

“Mr. Akau has accepted his guilt by plea agreement with the government. He has accepted responsibility and expressed remorse for his involvement in the offense. The plea agreement required Mr. Akau to cooperate with the government and he has done so,” Flores argued in a sentencing statement filed in court. “Mr. Akau was an essential witness for the government at the trial of Mr. Miske.”

Akau had disclosed to prosecutors that he had accepted an offer from Miske of money, or a lucrative job on Honolulu’s docks, in exchange for killing an ILWU official who was blocking Miske’s continued access to stevedoring jobs for his criminal associates.

Flores argued that although prosecutors knew Miske wanted to have the ILWU official, Elgin Calles, assaulted, Akau’s disclosure that it was a murder-for-hire scheme that tied directly back to Miske was new and powerful information that gave prosecutors leverage they used to flip additional defendants.

“The genesis for their honesty was Mr. Akau’s honesty,” Flores argued to Judge Watson during the hearing.

Judge Watson did not agree, pointing to the difference between Akau’s trial testimony and what he admitted during plea negotiations, what he acknowledged in his written plea agreement, and what he had admitted during direct questioning by Judge Watson during his 2021 change of plea hearing.

“It came as a surprise when Akau took the stand and said precisely the opposite,” Watson said. “It was more than a failure to cooperate. It was an attempt to undermine the government’s prosecution.”

What follows are extended excerpts from court records showing how Akau’s answers about these crucial conversations changed between the time of his guilty plea and his subsequent testimony in Miske’s trial.

The Plea Agreement

Reviewing Akau’s plea agreement and the transcript of his change of plea hearing, confirm that he tied two murder-for-hire plots to Miske.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Watson said he had asked Akau the direct questions about Miske’s role because he knew this would be a critical issue.

“I specifically asked those questions because I knew tying Miske to these two acts was important, even critical, in the upcoming trial testimony,” Watson said.

“Mr. Akau expressed no reservation or hesitation in answering in the affirmative,” Watson said. “His understanding was that the $50,000 came not from Miller or another associate, but from Miske himself.”

“For example, in or around 2016-2017, AKAU, who was directed by Wayne Miller, accepted an offer from Miske to murder Victim-12 in exchange for $50,000,” Akau admitted in the plea agreement.

During his change of plea hearing, Judge Watson questioned Akau about Miller’s offer.

THE DEFENDANT: He had a situation in which he fell out of favor with Mr. Miske, and he asked if I could help him by taking care of that situation for him in which they talk about Victim-12, Your Honor.

THE COURT: And this was a way for Mr. Miller to get back in good graces with Mr. Miske?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: You were promised $50,000 for your assistance?

THE DEFENDANT: I was, Your Honor.

THE COURT: What was your understanding as far as where that 50,000 was going to come from?

THE DEFENDANT: I assumed that my cousin was going to get it from Mike, but I wasn’t sure if that was actually the truth.

THE COURT: That’s what Mr. Miller told you?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor, that’s what Mr. Miller told me.

THE COURT: That Mr. Miske would be paying the $50,000 to you for your help?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

Judge Watson elicited a similar answer when he asked Akau directly about an earlier solicitation to murder Jonathan Fraser.

Watson read from the plea agreement.

THE COURT: “In or around 2016, AKAU was also offered $50,000 by Michael J. Miske, Jr., through Wayne Miller, this time to abduct Johnathan Fraser and transport him to the North Shore of Oahu where another individual would commit Fraser’s murder. After thinking over the offer and discussing it with others, AKAU declined to accept the offer because Fraser was ‘a kid.'”

THE COURT: And in that situation your understanding from Mr. Miller was that the $50,000 would come from Mr. Miske?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

It should be noted that Akau’s written plea agreement was initially filed under seal, meaning that it was not publicly available. When the confidentiality of the document was later challenged, Akau’s attorney at the time, Beverly Hills, California-based Ronald Richards, argued unsealing the document would expose Akau to retaliation by confirming his cooperation with the government, and could “be used as a basis to put a green light on him (kill order).”

His fear of Miske’s reach within the Federal Detention Center could account for the later change in his trial testimony.

Trial testimony

During Akau’s testimony on April 8, 2024, he was asked about Miller’s two offers. This time, his story was different.

THE WITNESS: He wanted to abduct Jonathan Fraser.

Q BY MR. INCIONG: Did you know who the name — did that name mean anything to you at that time?

A: No.

Q: What did Mr. Miller ask you to do regarding Jonathan Fraser?

A: Abduct him.

Q: Did he indicate whether there was any specific place he wanted you to take him?

A: He would let me know. He just wanted me to take him to the North Shore.

Q: Was it simply to abduct Mr. Frasure or was there anything more that he proposed to you?

A: He proposed, if I was willing, to shoot him.

Q: Meaning kill him?

A: Yeah.

Q: Did Mr. Miller offer you anything if you would agree to do that?

A: 50, 000 .

Q: Did you believe that this was an offer coming from Mr. Miller himself or being relayed on behalf of someone else?

MR. KENNEDY: Objection on his belief, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Overruled. Go ahead.

THE WITNESS: From himself.

Separately, he was asked about the offer to kill an ILWU official, Elgin Calles. Again, he demurred.

Q: After you declined the offered contract from Mr. Miller in regard to Jonathan Fraser, was there another contract that he offered to you fairly quickly after that?

A: Yes.

Q: Tell the jury about that.

A: He asked me if I could help him follow a union member for the longshoremen.

Q: Did Mr. Miller identify who that person was?

A: Yes.

Q: What was that person’s name?

A: Elgin.

Q: Did you know this person?

A: No. I think he was the hiring agent.

Q: And was this the same union that you worked with at the movies or was this a separate union?

A: Separate union.

Q: Was this the stevedores union?

A: Yes.

Q What was the offer made in regard to whether you would assist with Mr. Calles — with Elgin?

A: He told me he would give me the same money, 50,000, or a job in the stevedores.

Q: So there were two options for this one?

A: Yes.

Q: $50,000 or a job in the stevedores?

A Yes.

Q: From your friendship with Mr. Miller, did you believe he had any pull or a way to guarantee you a job in the stevedores?

A I wasn’t sure if he did or he didn’t.

Q: So I asked you previously whether you believed the Frasure offer was Miller’s own or he was doing it on behalf of someone else. Same question in regard to Elgin, did you believe this was Miller’s thing?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: Why did you believe that?

A: Because I asked him if it had anything to do with Mike, and he told me no.

Q: I Why did you specifically ask him if it had anything to do with Mike Miske?

A: Because I kind of stay in my own lane. After the Frasure situation, I didn’t want to get involved with anything.

Q: So you trusted Mr. Miller’s word on that?

A: Yes.

See:

“Founder of a Kaneohe biker gang and former stagehand union official to be sentenced next week,” iLind.net, May 3, 2025.

“Hawaii crime ring enforcer sentenced to 14 years in federal racketeering case,” Jeremy Yurow, Courthouse News, May 6, 2025.

Memorandum of Plea Agreement by Norman L. Akau III, June 9, 2021.

Transcript of trial testimony by Normal L. Akau III, Federal District Court, District of Hawaii, April 8, 2024.