What is going on? Seriously what the fuck is going on with the government in Hawaii? You’d think after the largest corruption scandal in state history, numerous Federal indictments, and 3 subpoenas from a Federal grand jury investigating the Honolulu Rail that government officials would be doing everything they can to avoid the perception of impropriety. Instead, they’re doing the exact opposite.
Keith Kaneshiro laughs in the face of his crimes
Honolulu Prosecutor and worthless bag of shit Keith Kaneshiro was put on “Paid Leave” (he should have been impeached) after becoming the target of a Federal criminal investigation in connection with Katherine Kealoha. Attorney General Clare Connors withdrew her petition to get him suspended because he voluntarily went on leave and now he’s making her and the rest of the Hawaii Supreme Court look like fools by continuing to show up to work. And by “continuing to show up for work” I mean “intimidate witnesses and destroy evidence”. What Keith is doing is the equivalent of drinking a beer during your sobriety test after getting pulled over for a DUI.
The Supreme Court and city council continue to let his behavior go unpunished despite the fact that he’s undermined the entire judicial system. He’s been in the prosecutor’s office for a long time so there’s no doubt a lot of these people are his friends but Jesus Christ, at some point you have to do your job. Every criminal case during his tenure is tainted by corruption and yet he continues to act with impunity.
Kaneshiro’s attorney says he had “no access to criminal case files” and was “just picking up personal items” which he could have had anybody do. This guy is pissing on our shoes and telling us it’s raining. This is the same man that intimidated witnesses before and now he’s back at work to intimidate even more witnesses and try to save his own ass. And the state is letting him do it because they chose to go easy on him. A man who made a mockery and continues to make a mockery of their entire system.
What an asshole
Here’s an idea – IMPEACH THIS MAN. DO ANYTHING to get him and anybody associated with him the hell away from the state prosecutor’s office. I don’t care if you’re friends with him, I don’t care who he knows, I especially don’t care how long he’s been there, it’s embarrassing how the powers that be have handled this situation.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
So who’s in charge now that Keith is gone? One of his best friends and close associates, acting City Prosecutor and creepy ghoul Dwight Nadamoto. A man who has no desire or plan to fix the lack of transparency or protection for whistleblowers and was close with the same gang that just got indicted for corruption.
During his first appearance to the City Council, where he should have been grilled mercilessly on his ties to two Federal criminals, this exchange occurred:
“There were certain checks and balances that were not set, to ensure that some of the alleged activities wouldn’t take place to begin with. You as a new leader in the department and your staff doing to ensure more checks and balances are in place?,” asked council member Kymberly Pine, who represents Ewa Beach and Kapolei.
“I think one thing we can do is that if something like that were to happen, they should come forward to us and let us know ‘Hey this doesn’t seem quite right,'” said Nadamoto.
“I would guess the proper channels would have been from Ms. Kealoha, who was a career criminal, to go to district court supervisor… so they, you know, they should have maybe suspected something maybe was not quite right,” said Nadamoto.
Great answer Dwight. The problem is people did come forward and they were intimidated by your former boss. When pressed for exact details of how to prevent this same problem from occurring in the future, Nadamoto didn’t have any answers. He wants things to remain the same so he can do what Keith did which is “whatever the hell he wants”. The people in the city council want to turn a blind eye and save face instead of cleaning house and admitting they did a terrible job.
Why are they using kid gloves when handling these criminals masquerading as prosecutors? They’re either too incompetent to notice, too lazy to act, or complicit in their crimes. There are no other explanations.
Breaking the law in Hawaii is a lucrative business
As reported by Chad Blair from Honolulu Civil Beat, taxpayers are currently footing the bill for the attorneys in the trials of Louis Kealoha, Katherine Kealoha, and Keith Kaneshiro. That’s right, we’re paying $75,000 to a law firm to defend Keith Kaneshiro for the crime of stealing our money in the first place. He stole more of our money to get himself out of trouble for stealing our money. It boggles the mind.
Katherine and Louis Kealoha are also having their legal services paid for by the city AKA our tax dollars because they claimed they “couldn’t afford it” despite recently selling their $1.3M Hawaii Kai home and robbing the taxpayers and various family members for years and years.
Louis Kealoha, the man who was dealing drugs and using the police department as his own personal enforcers, was paid a $250,000 severance package from taxpayer dollars after he was indicted for breaking the law instead of upholding the law.
I’m unsure what the lesson is to be taken out of all this. Breaking the law, defrauding the taxpayers, and destroying public institutions will get you paid? That’s basically what the state government is saying.
Reading this makes me realize I need to start my political career here. I can live like a millionaire from taxpayer funds, do cocaine at work all day, have the police department and the prosecutor’s office attack anybody I don’t like and when I get caught, the city will pay me for doing it.
This is looking more and more like a lost cause
We have to throw the whole government away, they clearly have no desire to help the people of Hawaii in any way, shape or form. When I wrote my first piece on the corruption here, I was optimistic. Maybe this is just a bad batch of people, we’ll expel them from the system and things will go back to normal. After seeing what’s happening now, I’m quickly losing hope. This is how things are, maybe how things always will be. I was being naive.
If a corruption scandal this big is being swept under the rug and the criminals can be rewarded for their crimes, there is no justice in Honolulu. If you vote in the next election, just vote for anybody not currently in office. Maybe if everybody is gone we can start over, but I doubt it.