Category Archives: Police

Former police chief’s wife used fictional person to avoid questions

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One of the fascinating pieces of the indictment against former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, deputy city prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, is her alleged use of a fictional character, “Alison Lee Wong,” to support her version of events in several situations.

The first use of the alleged alias described in the indictment came in 2010, when the Kealoha’s applied for a $1.1 million loan from the Hawaii USA Federal Credit Union to refinance their Kahala residence. In their application, the couple allegedly claimed “as their own assets” the money in two trust accounts for which Katherine Kealoha was the court-appointed trustee.

These accounts dated to 2004, when Kealoha was in private practice, and were set up at the direction of a state court after Kealoha was named trustee and guardian for two children, then ages 10 and 12. The two accounts initially held more than $167,000.

“Pursuant to a state court order, all disbursements and transactions associated with these trust accounts were to be approved by both K. KEALOHA and her co-counsel in the state court guardianship case (“Attorney 1″).”

Instead, the indictment alleges, between May 2004 and February 2012, “without notice to or approval” by the children or Kealoha’s co-counsel, Katherine Kealoha “used almost all the funds in the Trust accounts to pay for personal expenses” incurred by herself and her husband.

The indictment then lists 17 separate occasions when funds from one or the other account were improperly used, including being pledged as collateral for personal loans, mortgage payments, loan payments, overdraft charges, etc.

According to the indictment, “…in or about June 2010, K. KEALOHA altered monthly statements for one of the Trust Accounts to make it appear that she owned the accounts, and forwarded those altered documents to HUSAFCU to support the loan application.”

Then a credit search by the credit union turned up “certain derogatory items” in the couple’s credit history that threatened to derail the loan approval. So Alison Lee Wong, Katherine Kealoha’s alter ego, was called into service, the indictment alleges.

On or about July 6, 2010, using the alias Alison Lee Wong, K. KEALOHA sent a fabricated email to herself at a different email address, and forwarded that email to her mortgage broker, in order to make it appear that derogatory credit associated with K.KEALOHA was erroneous, and that KEALOHA’s assistant, “Alison Lee Wong,” was attempting to correct such errors.

It wasn’t the only time Alison has been relied on.

When her co-counsel on the children’s trusts repeatedly asked for information on the status of the trusts, Katherine Kealoha allegedly invoked the mysterious Alison to conceal that almost $150,000 of the trust funds had been taken and spent.

a. On August 2-3, 2011, K. KEALOHA sent emails to her alias, “Alison Lee Wong,” which she then forwarded to Attorney l’s law firm, in order to make it appear that K. KEALOHA was actively working towards closing out R.T. and A.T. ‘s guardianships.

b. On August 7, 2011, K. KEALOHA sent an email to Attorney l’s law firm claiming that “Alison” had “put together the final accounting [for R.T.]” and had called R.T. regarding signing the necessary documents to finalize R.T.’s account.

c. On or about September 26, 2011, K. KEALOHA sent an email to Attorney l’s law firm, claiming she “plan[ned] on meeting with Alison [Lee Wong]” in several days to “go over the documents that [R.T.] dropped off.”

d. On or about October 26, 2011, using the alias “Alison Lee
Wong,” K. KEALOHA sent a fraudulent email to Attorney l’s law firm regarding closing out R.T. and A.T.’s guardianships, and falsely represented that Alison Lee Wong was “making sure all necessary documents are signed.”

The government says Alison Lee Wong was fictitious.

Katherine Kealoha said differently in a sworn deposition during the civil lawsuit brought by her uncle, Gerard Puana, and her grandmother, Florence Puana.

Alison Lee Wong came up in this context because her name appears as the notary on a document establishing a trust for Gerard Puana. The trust document was prepared by Katherine Kealoha, and a copy was submitted to Central Pacific Home Loans as part of the application for a loan to purchase a condominium in the name of Puana’s trust. A copy of the trust agreement, signed by Kealoha and notarized by Alison Lee Wong, was apparently retrieved from Central Pacific’s records. Kealoha herself repeatedly said she was unable to locate a copy.

The document included a list of trust assets which Gerard Puana later testified he never owned, leaving the impression the list of fake assets were simply used to bolster the loan application.

Under questioning by the attorney representing Gerard and Florence Puana, Katherine Kealoha claimed she met Alison Lee Wong while in college. However, she said the Alison Wong she had known was not the same person who notarized the trust agreement. And, Kealoha said, the copy from Central Pacific was different from the copy she signed.

The questions over the trust agreement, the falsely claimed trust assets, and the signature of notary Alison Lee Wong, was left hanging in the depositions.

Kealoha

A. Well, I met her–I met her probably when I was in college at–and she worked at the Y. And my boyfriend at the time worked at the Y and I met her, I’m just, you know, hanging out there.

Q. When you say Y, you mean YMCA?

A. I’m sorry, the YMCA, yes.

Q. Which YMCA would that be?

A. The YMCA in Kalihi.

Q. So that’s when you first met Alison Wong?

A. Uh-hum.

Q. Did you ever have her work on–or did you ever work on any case where she was also involved in?

A. I didn’t have her work on any cases but I did bump into her years later. I can’t think of how many years later but I did have her, on several occasions, take documents down from our office to go and take down to court. I did have her do some messaging. That was quite a while ago.

Unraveling all of this is going to be interesting.

Civil Beat now offering in-depth video coverage

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An old friend called attention to Civil Beat’s video coverage of portions of a Honolulu Police Commission meeting this week in which commissioners Steve Levinson and Loretta Sheehan attempted to question Kevin Sumida, attorney for former Police Chief Kealoha (I say attempted because Sumida consistently avoided answering by instead throwing back his own questions, even when repeatedly asked to answer the question being posed).

After viewing the video, my friend wrote in a Facebook post:

Um, Civil Beat’s coverage of Honolulu Police Commission meetings. Watching Levinson question Kevin Sumida is pure soft porn. And then Commissioner Sheehan has at it. If I smoked cigarettes, I’d be a pack in.

The Civil Beat video of the commission meeting is about 36 intense minutes long. It’s worth setting aside the time to watch the whole thing.

And, by the way, it’s technical quality is very good.

It’s a real expansion of Civil Beat’s news gathering, and gives readers/viewers new options for educating ourselves.

Past time to dial back on police secrecy

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You might want to check out my Civil Beat column this week, “Ian Lind: It’s Time To End The Secrecy Surrounding Police Officers.”

This was triggered by news reports last week about the testimony of Honolulu Police Officer Denny Santiago before the Honolulu Police Commission.

Santiago complained that internal complaints within the department were simply swallowed up by the prevailing secrecy of the department, leaving complainants open to retaliation for raising challenges.

According to a Civil Beat story about the testimony, Santiago “didn’t want to talk about his pending complaints within HPD, saying that he signed a confidentiality clause when he filed the complaints.”

That comment set off alarm bells for me.

Why? Because back in the early 1990s, this was the norm for agencies with the responsibility to field complaints about public officials, including the State Ethics Commission and Campaign Spending Commission.

Yes, you could file complaints. No, you were prohibited by law from publicly stating that you had done so.

At the time, I was published a monthly newsletter about money and politics. In 1992, I filed a complaint with the Campaign Spending Commission about unreported political expenditures, and then wrote about it in my newsletter. That brought push-back from the subject of the complaint, and the threat of a criminal complaint against me by the commission for violating the non-disclosure provision of the law.

The result was a victory in federal court which was upheld by the 9th Circuit. The law was found to be an unconstitutional restriction on First Amendment speech. And the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal, leaving the decision in place.

The arguments used to justify the unconstitutional policy were the same kinds of arguments now paraded out to justify why police officers and the police department deserve special deference when it comes to public disclosure.

My point in the history lesson was to make clear that none of the terrible outcomes that the state predicted were sure to result from public disclosure of ethics and campaign complaints actually happened when the law was changed. They were all conjecture, and all turned out to be shibai.

In my view, it’s all important context for understanding the new emerging debate over secrecy at the Police Commission and Police Department.

Discussion of depleted uranium hazard prompts “disorderly conduct” complaint

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Hawaii County police this week read longtime peace activist Jim Albertini his rights prior to questioning him about a disorderly conduct complaint filed by a Hilo charter school.

The complaint was made by the principal and secretary of Connections Public Charter School, who reportedly were “alarmed” by a telephone call last week from Albertini, according to Albertini’s account of what he was told during questioning by the police.

Albertini first learned of the complaint on Monday, when he was contacted by a Hilo Police Officer C. Sugimoto. He voluntarily appeared at the Hilo Police Station the following day for questioning.

“Officer Sugimoto first read me my rights and I signed a consent form to be questioned. Officer Sugimoto then told me that I was being investigated on a possible “Disorderly Conduct” complaint filed by Connections Public Charter School (PCS) Principal John Thatcher and the school secretary, Candy Alverado,” Albertini later reported.

The complaint was apparently prompted by Albertini’s telephone call to the school last Friday, during which he requested the email addresses of teachers who took their students to an April 20, 2017 Earth Day event at the Pohakuloa Training Area, a public relations event sponsored by the U.S. Army.

Albertini and others have been calling public attention to the potential hazards posed by the previous us of depleted uranium during military training at Pohakuloa going back to the 1960s. They contend that conventional radiation monitoring does not adequately protect the public from the health effects of potential inhalation of microscopic particles in dust or smoke created by weapons training during military maneuvers.

Albertini said he spoke with Alvarado during his call to the school last week, “and explained his concern to get information to teachers and parents of students about the dangers of inhaling Depleted Uranium (DU) oxide dust particles possibly being dispersed by heavy artillery live fire which was taking place at Pohakuloa on April 20th.”

“Ms. Alverado was very pleasant and gave me the email addresses of two teachers plus the bus driver who went to Pohakuloa Earth Day events,” Albertini said.

According to state law:

§711-1101 Disorderly conduct. (1) A person commits the offense of disorderly conduct if, with intent to cause physical inconvenience or alarm by a member or members of the public, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, the person:

(a) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or

(b) Makes unreasonable noise; or

(c) Subjects another person to offensively coarse behavior or abusive language which is likely to provoke a violent response; or

(d) Creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which is not performed under any authorized license or permit; or

(e) Impedes or obstructs, for the purpose of begging or soliciting alms, any person in any public place or in any place open to the public.

It’s difficult to see that Albertini’s contact with the school secretary by phone, or subsequent email addressed to others, could possibly be construed as disorderly conduct as defined by law.

A Hawaii Supreme Court decision in February 2017 narrowed the application of the law.

In that decision, the court ruled disorderly conduct “is limited to conduct which is itself disorderly,” and “the offense requires that the defendant engaged in fighting, threatening, or violent or tumultuous behavior.”

Clearly, Albertini’s conduct included nothing of that sort. So why did the police take action on the school’s complaint in a manner that appears aimed at discouraging free speech and open discussion of a controversial but important matter? The police department should be held to account on this.