Category Archives: Court

What’s Next for “Hammah”? Lance Bermudez, key Miske associate, to be sentenced

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Lance Bermudez, known simply as “Hammah,” will be the last of Mike Miske’s co-defendants and criminal associates to be sentenced when he appears in the courtroom of Judge Derrick Watson on Monday morning, July 14.

Bermudez had already earned a reputation as a “shooter” by late 2015 or early 2016 when Miske requested a meeting and offered him a contract to kill a Waimanalo man who Miske believed was providing information to investigators working on an FBI probe that had been underway for two years.

Bermudez became a close associate of Jacob “Jake” Smith, who was paid to be on call to assault victims at Miske’s request, and John Stancil, Miske’s younger half-brother, and appeared to be mentoring Dae Han Moon, the youngest of Miske’s co-defendants.

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Bermudez, 34, pleaded guilty in September 2022 to racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute drugs, and armed robbery. The drug charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, and the maximum sentence on each of the other two charges is 20 years. The plea agreement required Bermudez to cooperate with prosecutors and provide information about Miske and other defendants. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop several other charges, and to recommend at least a three-level reduction from federal sentencing guidelines for taking responsibility and for allowing the government to avoid a trial in his case.

He entered his guilty plea via video from an undisclosed location on the mainland due to concerns at the time that bringing Bermudez back to appear in court would pose an unnecessary risk to his physical safety. However, following Miske’s death in December, and the sentencing of all his co-defendants and other associates, the federal Bureau of Prisons online inmate locator reports Bermudez is currently back in Honolulu?s Federal Detention Center pending sentencing.

Bermudez’s cooperation and testimony were expected to be critical in tying Miske and Jason Yokoyama, another close associate and manager at Miske’s M Nightclub, to various criminal activities, including the Waimanalo murder-for-hire plot and the disappearance of Jonathan Fraser.

However, Bermudez was surprisingly not called to testify during Miske’s trial. Despite this, Miske was ultimately found guilty of 13 of 16 counts, including racketeering conspiracy and murder in aid of racketeering in connection to Fraser’s killing.

See:<blockquote

“Miske Case Weaves Together Disparate Strands Of Past Crimes,” January 20, 2021

“Another Key Player In The Miske Conspiracy Case Has Made A Deal With Prosecutors,” Civil Beat, September 8, 2022

“The Miske Trial: Key Cooperating Witness Says Working For Miske Made Him Feel Protected,” Civil Beat, May 21, 2024</blockquote>

Feds seek forfeiture of luxury Kahala home tied to fraud conviction of former defense contractor

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The United States government has filed a civil forfeiture action against a luxury Kahala home owned by Martin Kao, the disgraced former owner and CEO of a Hawaii-based defense contractor. I ran across the case while reviewing a list of recent federal cases filed in Hawaii, and recognized the address of the property just a block down the street from our home.

The government’s complaint filed in Honolulu’s Federal District Court on July 2 seeks authority to seize the property at 4902 Kahala Avenue, located at the intersection of Kahala Avenue and Kealaolu Avenue. Kao and his wife purchased the property in June 2020.

Kao, 52, was the Chief Executive Officer and 99% owner of Martin Defense Group, LLC, formerly Navatek LLC. The company, often referred to as MDG, specialized in designing and analyzing ship hull forms, ocean structures, underwater lifting bodies, and coupled hydrodynamic systems for the Department of Defense.

He is currently serving an 87-month sentence at the medium security federal correctional facility in Sheridan, Oregon after pleading guilty to defrauding the federal Paycheck Protection Program in a scheme that netted over $12 million; channeling total of $52,000 of illegal campaign contributions to the 2020 reelection campaign of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, with another $150,000 going to a super pac supporting her campaign, using relatives or employees and a shell company as straw donors; and forging financial documents submitted to Bank of America in order to qualify for a mortgage loan used to buy the Kahala property.

According to the forfeiture complaint, Kao applied to Bank of America for a $3 million mortgage on March 12, 2020. To support the application, he “digitally altered” several E*Trade account statements to “falsely inflate the value of his stock portfolio.”

Between mid-March and the end of May 2020, Kao manipulated the figures on six records — shifting decimal points to multiply values by 100 or 1,000 times. For example:

• A month-end account statement reported the value of Kao’s investments was $83,880.59, which he changed to claim a value of $8,388,000.59.

• The following month’s statement similarly inflated the account value from $49,614.70 to $4,961,400.70.

• A month end statement for April 2020 falsely stated that the account value was $5,618,900.02, while the true value shown on the original statement was just $56,189.02. The same fraudulent values appeared in an earlier “real-time values” record.

• Kao falsely claimed he had paid down a margin loan on his account by $4.1 million, but in fact he had paid only $4,100, inflating the amount by 1000 times.

• Finally, Kao altered a balance report in May 2020 to show an account value of $10,533,900.70, “when, in fact, the value was only $64,339.70.”

Kao submitted each of these forged documents to Bank of America in support of his Mortgage loan application.

The bank approved the loan, which made it possible for Kao and his wife to complete their purchase on June 29, 2020.

The home, at the corner of Kealaolu Avenue and directly across from Waialae Beach Park, spans 9,351 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms on a 15,074 sq. ft. lot.

For property tax purposes, it’s currently assessed at $7.69 million — $2.89 million for the land and $4.79 million for the structure. The annual tax bill is $80,273.98, and the property is not registered as owner-occupied, according to city tax records.

A correction and a comment

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First, a correction.

The Office of the Attorney General issued a news release on Tuesday, June 24, regarding the case of former Honolulu attorney Robert E. Chapman, featured in a post here on Saturday.

Indictment

The estimated $750,000 is about half the value of my original estimate. To arrive at my original estimate that the case involved a theft of about $1.5 million, I simply went through each of the counts and totaled the value of each transaction that was listed.

The AG’s lower figure seems to indicate that the indictment includes one set of charges stemming from the alleged thefts of cash or property from the estate of a deceased Honolulu resident, and a separate set of charges for stealing the same funds from the intended beneficiaries named in the victim’s will.

I have corrected my earlier post about the case to lower the total value of the property to the $750,000 figure used in AG’s news release.

Then there’s the presumption of innocence, raised in a reader’s comment on my initial post about the case.

The reader wrote:

I want to raise a concern that I believe is shared by others who care deeply about justice and fairness.

We must not lose sight of the principle that every person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty. While your reporting on Chapman’s indictment is accurate and sourced, the tone and detail come across as adjudication rather than reporting. It leaves the reader with little doubt that Chapman is guilty, even though he has yet to have his day in court.

We must also remember that an indictment is a one-sided presentation by prosecutors, and grand juries do not hear defenses. Using these documents as narrative fact, especially when tied to disciplinary proceedings or unrelated past conduct, risks blurring the line between accusation and conviction in the public eye.

Your work reaches and shapes opinion, and with that comes responsibility.

I agree in part with the comment that everyone is presumed innocent of criminal charges until proven guilty, and as a result added a statement to the original blog post noting that an indictment is only one side of the story, it’s not proof of guilt, and Mr. Chapman hasn’t yet had his chance to respond in court.

But it seems to me there’s more to be said.

A news story isn’t a trial. My job as a reporter is to give readers a clear picture of the charges, the surrounding circumstances, and their significance, especially when we’re talking about a defendant who held a position of trust. Chapman wasn’t just another attorney—he was the managing partner of one of the biggest firms in the state, handling estates and trusts, offering himself and his firm up as protectors of their clients’ interests, entrusted with clients’ financial lives and access to their personal and confidential information.

That kind of position demands the highest standard of ethics, and when that trust is called into question, I believe the public deserves serious, fact-based scrutiny of the allegations.

Of course, it’s the court’s job to decide criminal responsibility, and juries are routinely asked to separate media reports from trial evidence. But that doesn’t mean we avoid reporting on the facts that are already public, especially when they raise legitimate concerns about how someone in power uses or abuses their position of trust.

In any case, I thank the reader for their thoughtful comment. It’s an important conversation to have.

Former Honolulu attorney indicted in alleged $750K probate fraud

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[Correction: This post originally estimated the total amount involved in this fraud case at $1.5 million. This has been reduced to $750 based on information in a June 24 press release by the Office of the Attorney General.]

Robert Earl Chapman, a former managing partner at one of Hawaii’s largest law firms, has been indicted on 22 counts including forgery, theft, and identity theft in connection with an alleged scheme to seize control of about $750,000 from a deceased Honolulu resident’s estate.

Chapman, a graduate of the University of Maryland law school, was licensed to practice law in Hawaii in 1980. He became a named partner in the firm, then known as Stanton, Clay, Tom & Chapman, Attorneys At Law, in 1987, and later served as managing director of the firm, then known as Clay Chapman Iwamura Pulice & Nervell. He resigned from the practice of law in lieu of discipline in 2022.

The grand jury indictment was filed in Honolulu’s First Circuit Court on Friday morning, June 20, by the Office of the Attorney General. A Grand Jury Bench Warrant set bail at $1 million, and Chapman posted a $1 million bond after the warrant was served on Saturday afternoon.

A grand jury indictment is a one-sided process, based only on the prosecutors’ version of events and interpretation of the evidence. It means that the grand jury believed there was enough evidence to bring charges, but is not proof that any crimes have occurred.

Court records do not indicate whether Chapman has retained an attorney, and he has not yet had an opportunity to respond to the charges or enter a plea in the case.

According to the indictment, Chapman allegedly accessed confidential personal information of Robert Boulette without authorization on or about October 19, 2018. Then, “with intent to defraud,” Chapman allegedly created or altered what “purported to be the will and codicil of Robert Boulette” which he then used to take control of the accounts and properties making up Boulette’s estate.

None of the offense were “discovered prior to January 13, 2023, by either an aggrieved party or a person who has a legal duty to represent an aggrieved party,” the indictment states.

Boulette died in Honolulu in November 2016 at age 77. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Boulette served in the Navy and later worked for the Naval Audit Service until his retirement, according to an obituary in the Portland Oregonian newspaper. After retiring in the mid-1990s, Boulette made Honolulu his home, but traveled extensively.

Neither Chapman nor his law firm represented Boulette in any court case prior to his death, court records show. However, Chapman handled many estates and trusts, and was the contact person in numerous probate proceedings, according to a review of published legal notices. The indictment does not indicate where or how Chapman accessed Boulette’s confidential personal information, and whether the information was taken from the firm’s own records.

On October 24, 2018, Chapman filed an application to be named personal representative and to proceed with informal probate of Boulette’s will and a codicil amending the will, court records show. Informal probate usually sidesteps court supervision, which would have been an advantage if the intent was to defraud Boulette’s estate. The indictment alleges either or both of the documents, the will and codicil, were fraudulently created or altered, but does not provide further specifics. Legal notices of Chapman’s application were published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on three consecutive Thursdays in November 2018.

The indictment alleges Chapman then used the fraudulent documents to gain control over Boulette’s accounts and property with a total value of close to $750,000 that Boulette had bequeathed to the Make a Wish Foundation, Elderhostel Inc., and the Portland State University Alumni Association.

The indictment does not identify the specific accounts or properties Chapman is alleged to have improperly controlled, although it reports their respective values.

However, real estate records show that at the time of Boulette’s death in late 2016, he owned a small 1 bedroom-1 bath apartment in the Nuuanu Brookside condominium. On May 29, 2020, two years after Chapman applied to serve as the personal representative of Boulette’s estate, the leasehold apartment was transferred from Boulette’s estate to a new entity, NuBrook LLC.

State business registration records show NuBrook LLC had been registered to do business just three weeks before it took title to Boulette’s interest in the Brookside condominium. Chapman was listed as NuBrook’s sole member and manager, and was registered at the address of Chapman’s law firm. Chapman signed the assignment of lease document as the personal representative of Boulette’s estate, and as manager of NuBrook LLC.

In May 2023, the apartment was sold to a private buyer for $395,000, real estate records show.

This appears to be the transaction corresponds to Count 22 of the indictment, which charges Chapman with first degree theft for allegedly diverting $362,566.13 from Boulette’s estate to his own benefit in 2023. The amount may represent the net selling price of the Nuuanu Brookside apartment after paying fees and costs of the sale.

The charges against Chapman appear to mirror those detailed in the 2022 case brought by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which ended Chapman’s legal career. In that case, which did not involve criminal charges, Chapman admitted to the misconduct.

ODC launched its investigation after receiving a complaint alleging Chapman had “wrongfully attempted to lay claim to approximately $2,000,000.00 in abandoned property held by the Hawai’i Department of Budget and Finance….”

The abandoned property belonged to a former client whose company he had represented in the 1980s. He had never met the client, and had not even had any indirect contact with her for three decades. After questions were raised about Chapman’s application to claim the property on behalf of the client, a handwriting analyst retained by the Attorney General’s office determined that a power of attorney Chapman used in an attempt to legitimate his claim was a forgery.

ODC completed its investigation and initiated formal disciplinary proceedings against Chapman in October 2022. A month later, Chapman submitted a legal declaration admitting the allegations were true and offering to resign in lieu of discipline while the charges against him were pending. ODC then filed a petition in open court asking the Hawaii Supreme Court to approve Chapman’s request, which made public its previously confidential 37-page petition for discipline spelling out the allegations and evidence.

The Supreme Court agreed, finding Chapman’s misconduct had entailed “egregious violations” of the court’s Rules of Professional Conduct. No criminal charges were filed in that case.

Two subsequent lawsuits were later filed against Chapman and his former firm by former clients alleging legal malpractice, breach of contract, and other offenses. Both ended with confidential settlements.

Also see:

“Fraud allegations lead to resignation of prominent business attorney,” iLind.net, December 29, 2022

“News media turn a blind eye to attorney misdeeds,” iLind.net, January 17 2023