On March 22, Circuit Court Judge James H. Ashford signed an order requiring the registered owner of the large house at 91 Coelho Way in Nuuanu to allow access to the part of the property where an unnarmed man, Lindani Myeni, was confronted, shot, and killed by Honolulu police officers in April 2021.

Attorney’s for Myeni’s widow, who has sued the city over his death, maintain he entered the house by mistake and left quietly when questioned by short-term renters he met after entering the unsecured home. The lawsuit alleges mistakes by police in handing the situation, including failing to identify themselves as police officers, led to the shooting.

Access to the property for a total of four hours had been requested in order to allow experts for the plaintiff, and the city, to collect data regarding lighting conditions and visibility at the time of the shooting.

It was, according to attorneys representing the plaintiff, “a simple request to obtain an inspection of the Property by experts that will address a central factual issue in the case: whether under the lighting conditions at the location and date of the incident that is at the center of the case, Lindani Myeni could see that the person who was pointing a gun and flashlight at him, and telling him to “get on the ground,” was a police officer. To answer this question, experts need to inspect the area where the incident occurred under similar lighting conditions.

From the plaintiff’s motion to compel:

As there was no moon present in the sky at the time and this was a residential street in Nuuanu, it was dark. The Officers were armed with (1) guns, (2) Tasers, and (3) high intensity “tactical” flashlights. The high-intensity lights are blinding at night and, when pointed towards a person, make it impossible for him or her to see anything other than the light and objects in the path of the light beam.

As Mr. Myeni stood still, unarmed, on the side of the driveway of the Subject Property just a few feet off the street, one of the Officers — while hysterical screams of “that’s him” emanated from a person standing in the doorway of the house on the Property – – suddenly shone the flashlight directly in Mr. Myeni’s eyes and held a pistol in the flashlight beam pointed at Mr. Myeni and demanded that he “get on the ground” without stating he was a police officer. Plaintiff alleges that the Officer holding the pistol knew or reasonably should have known of the effect of the high-intensity flashlight on Mr. Myeni’s vision and his inability to discern the identity of the officer or any lawful purpose in his action.

And from a later legal memo:

The police officers will undoubtedly testify to what they saw and could see, and how the lighting was. Mr. Myeni – who Plaintiff contends could not see Defendant Orosco given his statement “who are you, who are you’ – is not here to testify to what he saw and perceived in the moments before he was shot. Plaintiff, his widow, was not there and cannot testify to contradict the Defendants. Her experts are the only way the jury can be shown the truth.

The owner of record of the property is identified in real estate records as James H. Hall. Hall took title to the property via a quitclaim deed in a somewhat murky 2018 transaction. The purchase came less than a year after he and his family were evicted from the last of a series of homes where they had squatted without payments for several years. Hall purchased Greentree Properties LLC for a reported $3 million from now disbarred Honolulu attorney Gary Dubin, who had represented Hall in efforts to block his eviction. Greentree’s only asset was the Coelho Way home, which Hall immediately deeded to himself.

However, a pending foreclosure lawsuit alleges that the home is still owned by Dubin, who took out a $2 million mortgage loan used for his original purchase of the property. Dubin alleges the property fell into foreclosure because Hall failed to fulfill his part of the deal, which required Hall to pay all of the property’s current expenses, including the mortgage, property taxes, etc. When payments on the mortgage loan stopped, the bank eventually went to court to foreclose on the property.

Dubin claims in legal filings in the foreclosure case that he retained a small interested in the Coelho Way property, giving him grounds to seek the return of some or all of the property from Hall.

The dispute between Hall and Dubin is playing out in the foreclosure case, but is not at issue in the Myeni lawsuit against the city, where Hall’s attorneys had fought for months to block any access to the property to study lighting conditions, saying their client, Hall, had raised a string of objections. Hall’s attorneys eventualy said obtaining a court order would be the only way to proceed.

Longtime readers of this blog might recognize the Coelho Way address, and Hall’s name, since they were the focus of several previous posts on this blog.

Warning–it’s a long, convoluted tale, and the overall picture is murky at best. Hall is not a party to the current civil lawsuit against the city, although the strange history of the property’s title is very much part of the background of the case.

“The squatters next door,” 1/20/2020

“The hotel next door,” 10/12/2021

“A history of dubious deals, Part 1,” 3/5/2022

“A history of dubious deals, Part 2,” 3/6/2022

Excerpts from Hall’s 2021 deposition taken in the Myeni lawsuit are attached to the motion asking the court to require Hall to allow inspection of the property by technical consultants.

In the deposition, Hall describes himself as a property manager. “I manage real estate,” he said, including Airbnb rentals of the Coelho way house, and a Waikiki condominium unit.

Hall said that in addition to income as a property manager, he also has some income property from non-real estate investments.

In addition, Hall said that he owns seven cars which he offers for rent.

Hall described his purchase of Greentree Properties, and the Coelho Way property, as a $3 million “structured arrangement.”

In response to a question, he said he was unsure of how much he had paid to date, but said it was between $500,000 and one million.

A dispute between Hall and Dubin over the Coelho property is playing out in the foreclosure case, in which Dubin has filed a counterclaim against the lender what he alleges were procedural defects in the foreclosure, and against Hall, who Dubin alleges has not fulfilled his financial obligations in the deal.

Next: Suggestions of tax fraud