Defense attorneys representing Michael Miske, the former Honolulu business owner now accused of controlling a racketeering enterprise, describe their client as the owner of several legitimate and successful businesses who paid taxes, provided employment, and gave back to the community.

However, in the first two months of trial, prosecutors have presented a slew of witnesses who told graphic stories of how his businesses used threats and violence to quash criticism and questions raised by competitors or customers, and used to demand better deals from other businesses.

Testimony earlier this month described how Miske used threats to stifle competition at a dealers-only car auction, where for several years he regularly bought cars for Hawaii Partners, one of his companies that was a licensed used car dealer.

A Bank of Hawaii employee who handled auto dealer sales at the auction described an incident in which Miske intimidated a bidder by standing with his back to the auctioneer but face to face with the bidder. Moving within inches of the bidder’s face, Miske’s dead-eyed stare intimidated the bidder and prompted him to drop out, allowing Miske to win the bid.

Another witness, Stanley Ma, was a car dealer and a regular at the Manheim Hawaii auctions. Ma said he was bidding on a Toyota Tacoma truck at an auction of inoperable vehicles, or vehicles located on neighbor islands, which prospective bidders had no opportunity to inspect. Seated in the front row of the auction, Ma placed an initial bid of $5,000, which someone behind him countered. The bidding eventually reached $18,500, and Ma dropped out, as he didn’t know the truck’s condition. Miske turned out to have been the winning bidder.

When bidding resumed, Ma said Miske started bidding on every vehicle he bid on. When he realized what was happening, Ma stopped bidding against Miske, who went on buy a number of cars and trucks throughout the day.

Later, Ma testified, Miske confronted him, yelling and cursing.

“We have a problem,” Miske told him, asking in a threatening manner, “Do you know who I am?”

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It was the day before Christmas in 2003, a busy day at the Costco warehouse store in Waipio, when police responded to reports of a disturbance in the parking lot. When officers reached the scene, they separated two men who had been arguing and squaring off against each other, ready to fight.

“You don’t know who I am”

One of the men was 29-year old Michael J. Miske Jr., the owner of Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, a small company started just three years previously. The other was Michael Botha, the 35-year old owner owner of a competing fumigation business, Sandwich Isle Termite and Pest Control, which he had started in 1997 after coming to Hawaii as district manager for Terminix, a large national company entering the Hawaii market.

At the time, Kamaaina Termite was struggling to establish itself in the industry, and was experiencing financial difficulties. In June 2003, the company was hit with a tax lien for $30,397.82 in unpaid federal taxes owed to the IRS for the prior two years. That would be the equivalent of $53,786 in today’s dollars due to inflation.

More than a decade later, in March 2014, the FBI launched a broad investigation of Miske. The following year, Botha was contacted for information about industry practices, and ended up telling federal investigators about the confrontation at Costco. Botha said Miske had accused him of “talking trash” about Kamaaina Termite, and had warned him that there would be consequences if he didn’t stop competing with Miske’s firm.

“You don’t know who I am,” Miske reportedly warned him back in 2003. “You don’t know what I’m about,” adding that he knew where Botha lived. Botha’s statement was recounted in several affidavits by FBI agents in support of applications for search warrants filed between 2015 and 2019. These search warrant applications were made public in 2022 and are now part of the court record.

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On September 29, 2015, a former manager at Mike Miske’s Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control told federal investigators “that Miske utilized a group of guys to provide ‘muscle’” according to several similar affidavits by an FBI agent in support of search warrants filed in court less than two months later.

The agent’s affidavit explained the term “muscle” meant the men were used for “protection, extortion and violence.”

The former manager, now an FBI confidential informant, said the group included John Stancil, Wayne Miller, Mike Buntenbah, and Alfredo Cabael Jr. A fifth man was reportedly part of the group, but is not named here because he has not yet been charged with any crime, or appeared as a witness in the case.

Stancil and Buntenbah were charged along with Miske and 10 other co-defendants, while Miller was charged separately. All have pleaded guilty and admitted to being associated with Miske racketeering enterprise, and carrying out a variety of criminal acts at Miske’s direction, including physical assaults.

Cabael has not been charged in this case, but cell phone records obtained in 2015 showed he kept in touch via two burner phones used by Miske.

According to the FBI affidavit:

According to CI (confidential informant) reporting, Cabael was Miske’s “go to guy” who did Miske’s “dirty work.” In March 2014, according to the US Coast Guard Investigative Service, Cabael was the owner’s representative for Miske’s FV (Fishing Vessel) Rachel. Cabael’s lengthy criminal record from August 1990 to July 2015 include 30 arrests for abuse of a family member, reckless driving, terroristic threatening, drunk driving, theft, criminal trespassing, and burglary.

Miske is standing trial alone after all 12 of his former co-defendant pleaded guilty, including his brother, John Stancil, who appeared in court to enter his guilty plea just an hour before the trial was set to get underway.

Cabael appeared in Honolulu’s Federal District Court this week as a prosecution witness against his former friend and boss. This account is based on notes taken by volunteer trial observers. It is not a full review of his testimony, nor does include the substance of his cross examination by Miske’s attorneys. And, of course, the validity of the testimony will ultimately have to be determined by members of the jury.

That said, what a story he is telling.

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Michigan-based attorney Gary Springstead, who represents Michael Buntenbah, one of the original co-defendants of accused racketeering leader Mike Miske, is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to overturn an order forfeiting a $250,000 mortgage Buntenbah pledged to secure his release from detention.

A formal notice of appeal was filed in federal court this week.

Buntenbah had been named in a 22-count racketeering indictment in July 2020, along with Miske and 9 other co-defendants. He was released on bond pending trial several months later after putting up a $500,000 mortgage on his Kaneohe home to secure the bond. The mortgage was later reduced to $250,000.

He pleaded guilty in March 2022 to a charge of conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, including testifying against his former associates, including Miske, but was allowed to remain free pending sentencing.

He was released into the third party custodianship of a son, Thomas C.P. Malone, and was required to abide by a number of conditions. These included a prohibition on consuming any alcoholic beverages or using any illicit drugs, and an agreement to submit to random drug testing, and location monitoring.

Another condition provided: “Defendant shall not commit any offense in violation of federal, state, or local law while on release in this case.”

But Buntenbah landed back in federal custody in January after he was captured on video leading a group that assaulted several people in a Waikiki bar.

During a January 31 hearing, Buntenbah pleaded no contest and admitted to violating the conditions of his release. He was ordered back to Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center, where he is to be held until he is sentenced on the underlying offense.

Prosecutors then filed a motion seeking to forfeit the mortgage that had secured his release.

Federal Judge Derrick Watson, who is presiding over Miske’s trial, granted the forfeiture motion following a hearing on February 27.

Watson said a video of the incident clearly showed Buntenbah has instigated the fight, arriving with his two sons and several other men, apparently “looking for a fight.”

Springstead argued that it would have been appropriate for Watson to order forfeiture of a portion of the mortgage, but not the entire amount. After all, he said, no one was seriously injured.

But Watson called it an “egregious” violation of the conditions of his release.

“This is not a traffic violation, not a jaywalking episode, this is an outright assault in a commercial establishment where the victims were surrounded by average Joe,” Watson said.

Watson said the video clearly showed members of Buntenbah’s group had punched the victim until he fell to the ground, then Buntenbah joined them in kicking and stomping him while down.

Watson stated for the record his reasons for finding no mitigating circumstances to consider, and also noted that one of the men who took part in the assault was Buntenbah’s son, Thomas Malone, who had been named by the court as Buntenbah’s third party custodian. In that capacity, Malone was supposed to supervise his father’s compliance with all conditions of release. Instead, he took part in punching and kicking the primary victim of the assault.

Ken Lawson, a former defense attorney who handled a number of high-profile federal cases and is now a faculty specialist at the University of Hawaii law school, said judges generally have wide discretion in such matters unless it can be shown that there was an abuse of judicial discretion.

In the simplest terms, Lawson said, the appeal will have to show the judge had no legitimate reason for making the decision.

That appears to set a very high bar that will be difficult to overcome in this case, where the violent attack was captured on video and widely circulated on social media, and where the underlying racketeering charges against Miske and his co-defendants, including Buntenbah, involve using strong-arm tactics to silence his critics and intimidate business competitors, including several assaults recited in Buntenbah’s own written plea agreement at the time of his guilty plea.