Thanks to all of you who read the incredibly flattering profile published yesterday by Civil Beat as part of their “Bright Spots” series, especially those who shared gracious comments!

And to those of you who subscribed to ilind.net as a result of reading the profile, welcome board. I hope you find enough of what you’re looking for to become regulars.

Here’s today’s bit of news.

Today is the deadline for the government to file its answer to Miske co-defendant Norman Akau’s appeal of the 14-year prison sentence handed down by Judge Derrick Watson last March. The sentence included the nearly five years he had already been held in Honolulu’s federal detention center awaiting sentencing.

At the time of his indictment and arrest in mid-2020, Akau was an elected member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) local union executive board. He was a founding member of the Nakipi Motorcycle Club in Kaneohe, and was implicated (along with several other Nakipi members) in drug dealing, robberies, and assaults. He pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering conspiracy and, in exchange, the government dropped other charges against him. He is currently scheduled for release from prison on June 19, 2032.

The Akau’s opening brief was filed in December, with an original January deadline set for the government’s reply.

That deadline was extended for 30-days at the request of the government through a “streamlined” online request, which can only be used once.

But on February 11, Assistant U.S. Attorney Aislinn Affinito filed a motion asking to extend the deadline an additional four months until June 23, 2026.

No action has been taken on the motion, according to a check of the court docket this morning, although the motion says the continued delay is not apposed by the defense. If the motion is not granted, the government’s answer is due by the end of today.

Affinito’s motion in support of her request for a further delay points the finger at internal pressure from a very heavy workload within the office of Hawaii’s U.S. Attorney.

Affinito wrote:

I am requesting an extension of time because I have been unable to turn my attention to this case until now due to my supervisory responsibilities as Chief of
Major Crimes at the Hawaii U.S. Attorney’s Office — overseeing hundreds of cases/investigations, including 7 trials in the next two months — as well as my own individual case load, which includes, among other things, my participation as lead counsel in a complex civil forfeiture matter (D. Haw., 1:25-cv-00028-DKW-KJM) and in multiple, active, complex white collar investigations.

The “complex civil forfeiture matter” she refers to is the government’s civil lawsuit seeking to seize millions of dollars worth of property owned by the late racketeering kingpin, Michael J. Miske, Jr. That case has dragged on for more than a year with little reported progress toward a settlement.

Affinito is also named as the contact for media follow-up in news releases from the U.S. Attorney’s office for more than a year.

Affinito joined the Hawaii U.S. Attorney’s office in December 2022 and was quickly assigned to the legal team in Miske’s criminal trial. She previously spent about eight years in private practice in Washington, D.C.

Akau’s appeal focuses on a claim that the government breached the terms of his plea agreement by including his participation in a murder for hire plot when calculating the appropriate sentence in his case. Akau’s attorney, Arizona-based Ramiro Salazar Flores, argued that Akau first disclosed a murder plot targeting an ILWU union official during his plea negotiations. Miske reportedly identified the official as the person blocking his continued access to union jobs on the docks. Flores argues Akau’s plea agreement barred the government from using that self-disclosure against him. The government said at sentencing that it had relied on “derivative evidence” gathered from other sources, but Flores argues prosecutors failed to disclose the “derivative evidence”, putting Akau at an unfair advantage.

Flores argues that it comes down to a question of due process and fairness.

Did the government violate Mr. Akau’s right to due process and fairness in the plea bargaining process when, prior to the change of plea proceeding, it
assured him the evidence of the murder for hire offense would not be used to calculate his sentencing guidelines while at the same time failing to disclose derivative evidence of the same murder for hire offense it possessed and intended to present.