Category Archives: Court

Courthouse News Service provided details of Fabro-Miske sentencing

I missed Delia Fabro-Miske’s sentencing as I waited for two plumbers to finish up a repair at our house.

But Courthouse News Service reporter Jeremy Yurow was there and provided a valuable account.

Here’s an excerpt. You should use to link to read Yurow’s full original account.

She (Fabro-Miske) appeared for sentencing at the federal courthouse in Honolulu accompanied by her defense attorneys, who had argued that their client was under the control of her powerful father-in-law.

“She wasn’t running a multi-million dollar organization. She wasn’t the property owner,” defense attorney Marcia Morrissey told the court. “She did what he told her to do because she wasn’t equipped to — maybe the judge sees — she was a high school graduate, no training in business.”

Watson overruled the defense’s objections about her supposed involvement in the 2016 kidnapping and murder of Jonathan Fraser, in what prosecutors say was retaliation by Miske for his son’s death in a car crash.

“There were several acts by Ms. Fabro-Miske that cumulatively leave no doubt in my mind that she knew what her acts were contributing to when she did them — that is, Mr. Fraser’s kidnapping and his ultimate murder,” Watson said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Watson rejected arguments that Fabro-Miske was unaware of her role in Fraser’s disappearance, pointing to specific actions she took, including convincing Fraser and his girlfriend Ashley Wong to become roommates in an apartment paid for by Mike Miske.

“What followed was this: in the Hawaii Kai apartment that Ms. Fabro-Miske shared for a very short period of time with Mr. Fraser and Ms. Wong, Ms. Fabro disconnected the Time Warner router that was the only way for Mr. Fraser and Ms. Wong to use one of the cellular phones they possessed to communicate,” Watson said.

The judge also cited how Fabro-Miske arranged an expensive spa day for herself and Wong on the day Fraser disappeared, and then quickly evicted Wong from the apartment under false pretenses.

“While any one of these actions might be explained away with innocent and other reasons, together they paint a strong and clear picture of a conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping in aid of the very same racketeering enterprise that Ms. Fabro-Miske admitted she was a member of,” Watson said.

Delia Fabro-Miske sentenced to federal prison

Delia Fabro-Miske, the daughter-in-law of the late business owner and racketeering boss Michael J. Miske, Jr., was sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in federal prison by Judge Derrick K. Watson during a hearing in Honolulu’s Federal District Court on Wednesday afternoon.

In addition, she will have to serve three years on supervised release after completion of her prison sentence, and pay $49,998 in restitution to the Social Security Administration.

Watson denied a request by Fabro-Miske’s attorney for a “non-custodial” sentence that would allow Fabro-Miske to continue raising her daughter.

Minutes of the sentencing hearing show the court adopted the factual findings of a revised Presentence Investigation Report. Although confidential, this section was disclosed in a legal memo by Fabro-Miske’s attorney opposing consideration of the “relevant acts” attributed to her by other trial witnesses.

… [A]s noted in her Sentencing Statement, the defendant contests her involvement in a significant number of the RA s asserted by cooperating defendants, including more than half of the RA s attributable for her for guideline computation purposes in this case. As a result, the defendant has minimized her conduct and has not fully accepted responsibility for her involvement in the instant offense. … Of further concern, the defendant has articulated no remorse for her participation in the kidnapping or murder of Fraser. Instead, she has put the blame entirely on Miske. The aggravating factors in this case increase the defendant’s likelihood of recidivism and risk of danger to the community.[emphasis added]

Marcia A. Morrissey, a California-based attorney representing Fabro-Miske, argued “the kidnapping and murder of Jonathan Fraser should not be considered relevant conduct, based on facts adduced at trial,” as well as federal sentencing guidelines and case law interpreting the guidelines.

After arguments were made in court, Judge Watson overruled Morrissey’s objections and permitted Fabro-Miske’s actions related to Fraser’s kidnapping and murder to be considered in his sentencing decision, according to the minutes of the hearing.

Any appeal of the sentence must be filed within 14 days of entry of judgement. It is not known whether Morrissey intends to appeal the sentence.

Fabro-Miske, now 30, was not among Mike Miske’s ten co-defendants named in the original racketeering indictment unsealed in July 2020. She was added to the case, along with Miske’s employee and business partner, Jason Yokoyama, in a superseding grand jury indictment in July 2021.

Unlike most of Mike Miske’s other co-defendants, Fabro-Miske spent only a short time in federal detention before being placed on supervised release, so she has little prior credit for time served. Judge Watson recommended she be confined in the federal correctional institution at Victorville (1st choice) or Phoenix (2nd choice), both medium security facilities. She is scheduled to turn herself in and begin her 7 year sentence by 2 p.m. on May 28.

Fabro-Miske was married to Miske’s late son, Caleb Jordan Keanu Miske, in October 2015. She was pregnant at the time. A month later, Caleb was critically injured in an automobile accident in Kaneohe. He died of complications of his injuries in March 2016 without having left the hospital.

Within a matter of months, Delia had been married, then left a widow and a single mother at 21.

Just a few months later, she assisted in the kidnapping and murder of Jonathan Fraser, Caleb’s best friend, who had also been critically injured in the crash that took Caleb’s life, but survived. Mike Miske wrongly blamed Fraser for being in the driver’s seat at the time of the accident, contrary to all available evidence and witness testimony, and the jury concluded he set in motion a murder-for-hire plot that ended with Fraser’s disappearance and death.

Johnny Fraser’s girlfriend, Ashley Wong (left) with Delia Fabro-Miske on the day he disappeared.

After Caleb’s death, Delia invited Fraser and his girlfriend to share her Hawaii Kai apartment that was being paid for by Mike Miske. On July 30, Delia took Wong to the Ko ‘Olina Resort on the other end of the island for a “spa day.” While the two women were there, Fraser disappeared and is presumed to have been kidnapped and murdered.

Fabro-Miske quickly became a central part of Miske’s scheme to hide his ownership of Kamaaina Termite and his other related businesses. State business registration records of Miske’s companies were updated to remove his name and instead claim Delia as the sole officer and director. The companies she supposedly controlled included Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, Oahu Termite and Pest Management, Kamaaina Holdings, Hawaii Partners, Kamaaina Energy, and Makana-Pacific Construction.

However, testimony during the trial described Fabro-Miske as more of a general clerical worker in the Kamaaina Termite office, doing routine tasks and handling paperwork. Tax returns cited during the trial confirmed Miske remained the sole owner of each of the companies even after removing his name from state records.

Fabro-Miske pleaded guilty on January 12, 2024, days after jury selection began in the case, leaving Mike Miske and his half-brother, John Stancil, as the only remaining defendants. Stancil then entered a guilty plea on the first day of trial, leaving Miske to face the jury alone.

In her plea agreement, Fabro-Miske admitted she had been part of Miske’s racketeering organization and took part in racketeering activities that involved bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and wire fraud. For example, she helped to prepare fraudulent corporate documents in order to allow several people to qualify for bank loans to purchase trucks, and she also hid her actual income in order to obtain the maximum Social Security survivor benefits after Caleb Miske’s death.

More importantly, her plea agreement included a provision requiring her to “cooperate fully” with government investigators and prosecutors, including “to be available to speak with law enforcement officials and representatives of the United States Attorney’s Office at any time and to give truthful and complete answers at such meetings….”

She also agreed to testify in any grand jury or trial proceedings involving her co-defendants, if requested.

Fabro-Miske ultimately was not called as witness during Miske’s trial, and the extent of her cooperation with prosecutors remains publicly unknown.

Judge orders the White House to immediate restore access for Associate Press reporters

Federal Judge Trevor McFadden issued an order on Tuesday granting a preliminary injunction and ordering the White House to immediately rescind its denial of access to press events by Associated Press reporters.

About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP’s access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the President. The AP now sues the White House chief of staff, her communications deputy, and the press secretary (collectively, “the Government”), seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the Government from excluding it because of its viewpoint.

Today, the Court grants that relief.

…the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less.”

McFadden was nominated to the District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017 by President Trump during his first term in office.

Judge McFadden found strong legal precedent for the view that access restrictions must be reasonable and not viewpoint based.

“So while the AP does not have a constitutional right to enter the Oval Office, it does have a right to not be excluded because of its
viewpoint. And the AP says that is exactly what is happening,” the order found.

The judge’s order requires the defendants to “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool,” as well as to events that are open to “all credentialed White House journalists.”

The full 41-page order follows. It is definitely worth at least skimming the sections on the history of the First Amendment and freedom of the press, as well as the discussion of how the White House press corps works.

Order for Preliminary Injunction, Associated Press v. Taylor Budowich by Ian Lind

Other claimants enter government’s civil forfeiture case targeting Mike Miske’s assets

Bank of Hawaii has filed a claim to the 8,206-square foot luxury home on nearly an acre of land overlooking the ocean in Portlock owned by the estate of the late Honolulu business owner and crime boss, Michael J. Miske, Jr.

The home is the most valuable asset among a list of 27 items, valued at an estimated $25 million, that the government is attempting to seize in a civil forfeiture lawsuit filed in January and now pending in Honolulu’s Federal District Court. These properties, which include real estate, cash, cashier’s checks, vintage cars, and art, were owned by Miske at the time of his death, either personally, as part of his living trust, or in the name of one of the companies that he owned.

Miske purchased the 37,891 sq.ft. property Lumahai Street in 2010 for $2.3 million, and poured millions into the construction of an oceanfront mansion. It is currently appraised for tax purposes at $7.3 million, although testimony in Miske’s criminal trial indicated he claimed to have spent upwards of $11 million on the home’s construction. Since Miske’s indictment and arrest in 2020, the home has reportedly been available for rent at around $100,000 per month.

Miske was convicted by a federal jury last year on 13 counts including racketeering, murder for hire, kidnapping, assault in aid of racketeering, obstruction of justice, and other offenses. The jury also found that his assets should be forfeited to the government because they were tied to his criminal activities.

However, Miske died in Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center on December 1, 2024, weeks prior to his scheduled sentencing. As a result, his indictment and conviction have been vacated, along with the jury verdict on forfeiture, requiring government attorneys to proceed in a civil forfeiture proceeding.

Attorneys for BOH say the bank is “the mortgagee of record” of the Portlock home based a $1,999,999 mortgage loan secured by the property that was recorded in the Bureau of Conveyances in 2018. The bank’s court filing does not indicate the outstanding balance, including interest, now owed to the bank.

An official notice of the government’s lawsuit seeking the forfeiture was posted February 24 on an official government web site (www.forfeiture.gov), and remained public for 30 days.

According to the court filing, “any person claiming a legal interest” in any of Miske’s properties must file a claim within 60 days of February 24, and then file an answer to the complaint within another 21 days.

The government may also consider granting petitions for remission or mitigation, which pardon all or part of the property from the forfeiture. A petition must include a description of your interest in the property supported by documentation; include any facts you believe justify the return of the property; and be signed under oath, subject to the penalty of perjury, or meet the requirements of an unsworn statement under penalty of perjury.

Bank of Hawaii also said it is “the mortgagee of record” for a 3-bedroom home on Paokano Loop in Kailua’s Enchanted Lake subdivision. Miske purchased the residence in 2011 for $570,000. It has nearly doubled in value since Miske was indicted and arrested in 2020, and is now appraised for tax purposes at over $1.3 million. The $212,000 BOH mortage secured a revolving line of credit Miske obtained in early 2017. A copy of the mortage is part of the bank’s court filing, but the outstanding balance of the loan has not been reported.

U.S. Bank Trust National Association has also filed a claim based on a first mortgage lien on the Paokano Loop home securing a $608,000 loan in June 2013. The loan was originally made by Pinnacle Capital Mortgage Corporation in Roseville, California, but has been transferred through a series of subsequent assignees. U.S. Bank, as trustee for the current mortage owner, has demanded “payment in full of all sums due and owing…through the sale and/or seizure of the Kailua Property.”

Cith records show real property taxes are paid and up to date for both the Portlock and Kailua properties.

Meanwhile, San Francisco attorney Edward M. Burch has entered the governent’s forfeiture case representing both The Michael J. Miske, Jr. Revocable Living Trust, as well as Miske’s granddaughter, a minor who is identified in the court filing only by her initials, “N.M.”

She is the child of Caleb Miske and Delia Fabro Miske. Caleb, Miske’s son and only child, died in 2016 of complications of injuries suffered in a high-speed crash in Kaneohe several months earlier. She was born while Caleb was hospitalized.

Burch and his law partner, David Michael, have a law practice specializing in civil asset forfeiture defense.

Criminal defense specializing in civil asset forfeiture (cases involving the seizure of property by law enforcement who believe the property is related to crime – usually illegal drug sales – including cash, vehicles, and real property). Both California and Federal statutes allow law enforcement to seize cash and other valuables on the grounds that the property is connected to crimes such as drug trafficking. These drug asset forfeiture laws are based on the “legal fiction” that the property is guilty of wronging society, and permit the government to sue the property as defendant in civil court. As owner or possessor of the property, one is considered a third party to these civil forfeiture actions, who is voluntarily in court. These “claimants” are afforded less rights and protections than a traditional criminal defendant. My office effectively represents claimants and aggressively opposes these forfeiture actions to get your property back.