Published: Saturday, May 18, 2020
Honolulu’s former top prosecutor was found not guilty of bribery in a case where employees of an engineering firm and architectural firm were accused of paying him campaign donations to ensure he would pursue a former employee of the company.
HONOLULU – A jury in Honolulu found the former top prosecutor in the city not guilty of bribery in a case in which employees of an engineering firm and architectural firm were accused of paying him campaign donations to ensure he would pursue a former employee of that company.
In 2022, a U.S. Grand Jury indicted former Honolulu prosecuting attorney Keith Kaneshiro along with five other people. In the indictment, it was alleged that Mitsunaga & Associates’ employees and an attorney had contributed more than $45 000 to Kaneshiro’s re-election campaigns from October 2012 to October 2016.
Hawaii News Now reported that the owner of the firm, Dennis Mitsunaga was found not guilty of all charges after two days of deliberations.
After the verdict, he was released.
The jury found all four other defendants to be not guilty.
Court documents state that the former employee who is being prosecuted had worked as a project architect for Mitsunaga & Associates, where she spent 15 years. She was fired on the day after she disagreed with the CEO’s claims against her.
Kaneshiro’s office prosecuted Kaneshiro, but in 2017, a judge dismissed it for lack of probable reason.
Kaneshiro, after the verdict, told reporters that he felt vindicated. “How can I regain my reputation?”
Birney Bervar told The Associated Press that “the first day I looked into this case, I didn’t think there was enough evidence of bribery.”
A month before the trial began, U.S. district judge J. Michael Seabright unexpectedly resigned from the case. U.S. Senior district judge Timothy Burgess from Alaska took over the case. He traveled to Hawaii to conduct the trial.
Burgess decided in February to not postpone the trial further, despite the investigation of allegations that one defendant had threatened Seabright. This led to his recusal.
The trial started in March.
The prosecution did not immediately comment on this verdict.
Source: ABC News