Category Archives: Police

No, we don’t need to coddle the sovereignty fringe

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Here’s a commment that arrived in my inbox yesterday that’s worth sharing and deserves a substantive reply.

I have long been an avid reader of this column, however I think you (Ian), do yourself injustice by implying sovereignty folks have no basis to stand on. It is such a singular view of a colonizer.

Does not every single person on this planet deserve self-determination and sovereignty?

It may be easy to dismiss such land claims, but speak to enough locals, and you will hear stories about outright theft in the land “transfers”, from strange names appearing in the tax ledgers who would turn up later to lay claim, to new names replacing owner ones when transferring deeds from paper to computer.

While I appreciate you can’t very well give any of this any credence, because, as you say, it would jeopardize every home/tract here, and we can’t have that, can we, that does not mean that theft did not occur during the Mahele. I just think it is disingenuous and in the interest of the dominant (occupying) culture, to gloss over that fact.

Signed, always been a fan, but don’t appreciate the condescension on matters relating to Kanaka Maoli.

To be clear. I have never implied that there is no basis for aspirations for Hawaiian sovereignty.

But I am extremely critical of “sovereignty folks” who rely on half-truths, untruths, misrepresentations, the denial of history, suspension of disbelief, or plain old lies, as the basis for their claims.

And I think that those who would just shrug and excuse these distortions do a disservice to those who are pursuing or have grounds for valid land claims, as those claims based on pure mumbo jumbo confuse the issues and devalue legitimate claims that stand up to scrutiny.

In addition, of course, we allow proponents of these off-base ideas to (a) use them to deceive and rip off others, or (b) get themselves into rapidly increasing legal jeopardy with the risk of escalating penalties out here in the “real” world.

One problem in my reporting on the case of the Kunia land claimants is that I have tried to present their case in reasonable terms, rather than highlighting the batshit crazy stuff they have been repeatedly filing in court.

So I’ve attached the latest legal memo filed in the case this week, a motion to set aside the default judgement against them in the Circuit Court ejectment lawsuit that resulted in their eviction and nine arrests. The response by the landowner’s attorney can be found here.

The motion was submitted by Travis and Kaiulani Mokiao, a brother and sister who have adopted new Hawaiian aliases.

Among their bizarre stuff are some substantive claims. At item #6, they say one of the defendants, Wayne Kaleimamahu, was not properly served. They have argued this same point several times before, and it was answered. And the very simple answer is that Kaleimamahu was dropped as a defendant after his arrest and incarceration. Period. He’s no longer part of the case, and so no longer needs to be served any of the legal papers. The court record is clear on this.

And it should be noted that the Mokiaos have repeatedly tried to stall or deflect the legal process by claiming they were not properly served. If true, it would be a valid concern. However, evidence shows they have repeatedly prevented documents from being served and have used their newly adopted names as covers to ignore or avoid service made using their legal names.

A video submitted as evidence in court after they applied for a temporary restraining order against the landowner’s agent, Tom Berg, shows that Berg packed legal documents in a box, carefully marked with the case number, and dropped in over the gate into the property that had been occupied. Several people came forward, including two named defendants in the case, and not only threw the box of what they termed “rubbish” back over the gate as Berg retreated, they continued to follow him, repeatedly throwing or kicking the box of papers in his direction while chasing him from the area. To then step forward later and complain about the lack of “proper service” is a very transparent fraud.

Later, they say several earlier court filings included affidavits in their names which made allegations and included a demand for answers to be filed with 10 or 21 days, with a twist: “Their non-response is treated as consent to judgment.”

Of course, that’s a total fiction. A failure to respond to an arbitrary demand carries no legal penalties at all. Ask a lawyer. Sometimes you can learn something.

Honestly, I don’t see any advantage in “normalizing” this kind of approach to the issues, which necessarily undermines legitimate Hawaiian claims.

In any case, read on if you’re interested.

Motion to set aside default… by Ian Lind

Squatters buy time by bluffing HPD

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Armed Honolulu police officers arrived on Wednesday to enforce a court order and evict a group of tresspassers who have been illegally occupying 30-acres of land in an agricultural subdivision in Kunia for more than nine months.

They were greeted by several people, including Travis Mokiao.

“This is my private property,” Mokiao announced confidently.

Mokiao claims an undivided interest in the property because he has traced his genealogy back to the original recipient of a land grant covering the area awarded following the Great Mahele of 1848.

Police eventually left without clearing the squatters from the property, although Mokiao’s claims are wrong on many different levels.

First, Mokiao’s claim to an “ownership” interest in the property was dismissed by Circuit Court Judge James McWhinnie after six months of court proceedings, who then issued an order directing police and sheriffs to eject the squatters and return the property to its owner, Guyland LLC.

Mokiao was able to bluff police by presenting documents that had been filed in court tracing his family back to the original landowner, although McWhinnie had already determined that those same papers did not support any claim to the land. Mokiao did not, and could not, present a conflicting court order because there is none.

Second, Mokiao told police they could not take further action because there is a pending case in federal court. However, court records show that federal case was dismissed within one day of its filing.

Mokiao also repeatedly cited a state law which, he alleged, supported their land claim.

In previous court filings, Mokiao referenced Section 172-11 Hawaii Revised Statutes.

§172-11 Land patents on land commission awards; to whom, for whose benefit. Every land patent issued upon an award of the board of commissioners to quiet land titles, shall be in the name of the person to whom the original award was made, even though the person is deceased, or the title to the real estate thereby granted has been alienated; and all land patents so issued shall inure to the benefit of the heirs and assigns of the holder of the original award. [L 1872, c 21, §1; RL 1925, §568; RL 1935, §1587; RL 1945, §4641; RL 1955, §100-11; HRS §172-11]

Of course, a plain reading of this statute confirms that land rights follow the heirs or “the assigns of the holder of the original award.”

If the original holder assigned all of their rights in a proporty to another person by sale, gift, or inheritance, the person those rights were assigned to would then own the property, and not the heirs of the original holder, who would no longer have property for them to inherit.

And that’s why genealogical claims to property, in the absence of a valid title search confirming the chain of title, are irrelevant to determining modern property rights.

At this point, Guyland LLC has been determined to be the legal owner of the property, and a court has ordered police to clear the property of the trespassers and their belongings.

HPD’s decision yesterday to withdraw without removing the trespassers appears to be without a valid basis. I’m sure that a lot of other landowners are watching and waiting to see how long it will take for this standoff to be ended.

SHOPO’s claim of media bias

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Last week, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser published a column by the president of SHOPO, the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, the statewide police union.

In the column, Sgt. Malcolm Lutu accuses the media of “extraordinary” bias against police officers by focusing on cases of “unacceptable conduct” and ignoring events that portray officers in a positive light.

Officers don’t get praised in the media for doing their job or going above and beyond their assigned duty. An example: our officers’ assistance with cases of mental illness that plague our parks and sidewalks. In fact, on Oct. 13, Honolulu police officers were recognized for the work done in the Homeless Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons program.

There wasn’t media coverage of this event, which would have drawn attention to the growing issues of homelessness and how officers are stepping up. Instead, we see headlines that are based on anonymous sources or “experts” who have no clue to the subject matter of the policing profession. We see body-camera video that provides glimpses into a scene rather than tell the full story. We see headlines that spark conspiracy theories instead of investigative facts.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for this viewpoint. However, the problem is one largely of SHOPO’s own making.

As they say, “You reap what you sow.”

And for well over 40 years, SHOPO has carried out a scorched-earth strategy in pursuit of a special form of enhanced “privacy” for police officers that for decades successfully denied the public basic information about misconduct by police officers. SHOPO’s strategy included extensive public relations campaigns and costly and repetitive court battles, underscored by more than $275,000 in campaign contributions to candidates for state and county offices.

The result, until a recent, far-reaching decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court, was that the public was denied access to information necessary to know how widespread problems are within the various police departments, or to distinguish between officers who commit serious violations of law or policy, and those who faithfully carry out their duties.

And over those decades, SHOPO’s focused its energies on a full court press to block disclosure of disciplinary findings, and its “right” to leave the public in the dark.

It was SHOPO that so sharply defined what it considered the overriding interest in avoiding public scrutiny of the actions of any and all police officers accused of misconduct.

SHOPO itself put relatively few resources into showcasing the positive examples of policing, perhaps due in part to the awkwardness of promoting some officers for their positive contributions to the community, while expending most of its resources on actively protecting those accused of misconduct.

Considering this history, it appears to me the SHOPO claim of extreme media “bias” is misdirected.

The hotel next door

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I’ve been frustrated for the past week, finding lots of “dots” without being able to figure out what the picture will look like when the dots are finally connected.

Here’s an example.

You may recall that back in April, police officers responding to a 911 call shot and killed a 29-year old from South Africa, Lindani Myeni, outside a home at 91 Coelho Way in lower Nuuanu.

It still isn’t clear what Myeni was doing at the home, or why he attacked the responding officers.

State real property records show the current registered owner of the property is James H. Hall, a former contractor who moved to Hawaii from Wisconsin with his wife and four children at the beginning of 2009, after his business had gone bankrupt and their home was lost through foreclosure.

Records show Hall purchased Greentree Properties LLC, a Nevada company that held title to the Coelho Way property, in September 2018 from Honolulu attorney Gary Dubin, who has since been disbarred by the Hawaii Supreme Court. Three months later, Hall transferred title in the property from Greentree to himself.

A week after the fatal shooting, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported the home had previously been the subject of complaints about illegal short-term rentals.

In 2019 and 2020 the city Department of Planning and Permitting investigated seven complaints that 91 Coelho Way was being used as an illegal short-term rental. Rentals of fewer than 30 days are not allowed at the property, said DPP spokesman Curtis Lum.

In addition, according to the Star-Advertiser, police officers also responded to several other incidents at the home, including a car break-in, a possible COVID violation, a car accident, and a “miscellaneous incident.”

However, the complaints led to a dead end.

“Our investigation determined that the ads were for 30 days or more, which is not a violation,” Lum told Star-Advertiser reporter Peter Boylan. “On-site inspections of the property did not reveal an illegal short-term rental on this property.”

End of story? Apparently not.

What wasn’t known at the time is that the Hall applied for and received received four federal Payroll Protection Program loans during 2020 and 2021 that totaled over $215,000, including two that classed his businesses as operating a hotel or motel.

In each year, separate loans went to Greentree Properties LLC, the Nevada company owned by Hall since 2018, and to a sole proprietorship also owned by Hall, PPP loan records show.

All four loans were made by First National Bank Texas. These were the only PPP loans made by the bank in Hawaii.

Greentree received a PPP loan of $96,656 in 2021. Greentree’s loan application was approved on April 9, just two days before Myeni’s shooting. Despite applying for and receiving the PPP loan, based on a prior year’s payroll, Greentree Properties is not listed among companies registered to do business in Hawaii, state business registration records show.

Hall’s sole proprietorship received $29,165 in 2021, according to the PPP lookup at the website, FederalPay.org. Both company’s applications reported they were in an industry category for “Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels.”

According to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS):

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing short-term lodging in facilities known as hotels, motor hotels, resort hotels, and motels. The establishments in this industry may offer food and beverage services, recreational services, conference rooms, convention services, laundry services, parking, and other services.

FederalPay.org examined loan eligibility criteria, and estimated the annual payroll of $464,000 was required to qualify for the loan awarded to Greentree Properties in 2021.

The size of company’s PPP loan indicates that the number of employees on payroll during the eligibility calculation period (typically 2019) was higher than the 4 jobs reported as retained on the PPP application3. This could be caused by a reduction in employment since 2019, due to Coronavirus or other factors.

The minimum number of employees this company must have had in 2019 to qualify for the loan range received is 5. This estimation is accurate if all employees were paid at or over the $100k PPP salary eligibility cap….

Based on the standard PPP eligibility formula, it may be possible to estimate the payroll expenses represented by a company on their PPP application (see details above). In order to qualify for the PPP loan amount received, Greentree Properties LLC’s 2019 payroll expenses are estimated to be at least $463,949 (not accounting for salary amounts > $100k).

In the earlier round of PPP loans distributed in 2020, Hall received a loan of $20,800, while Greentree received a loan of $69,000. Both companies listed themselves in a different category, this one defined as “other services to buildings and dwellings.”

“This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing services to buildings and dwellings (except exterminating and pest control; janitorial; landscaping care and maintenance; and carpet and upholstery cleaning),” according to the NAICS definition.

Examples of the types of services in this category include building exterior cleaning services (except sandblasting, window cleaning), swimming pool cleaning and maintenance services, chimney cleaning services, ventilation duct cleaning services, and drain or gutter cleaning services.

Greentree Properties LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, had been established in 2007 by former Honolulu attorney Gary Victor Dubin to hold title to the Coelho Way property. Dubin had sole control of Greentree from 2007 until September 2018, when he reportedly sold his interest in the company to Hall, court records show.

Then on November 26, 2018, Hall, now acting as the sole member of Greentree, executed a quit-claim deed transferring title to the Coelho Way property from the company to himself personally. Honolulu real property records now list Hall as the property’s sole owner.