By William Cole
Advertiser Courts Writer
At the end of a hearing yesterday in which state prosecutors called former state Sen. Marshall Ige a "con man" and "common huckster" for his dealings with an elderly Beverly Hills couple and a Punalu‘u farmer, Ige was ordered to face trial on charges of first-degree theft, money-laundering and attempted tax evasion.
District Judge Russel Nagata found that the threshold of a "strong suspicion of guilt" had been met to send the case to Circuit Court, but dismissed a count of extortion related to rent paid by a herb and fruit-tree farmer to Ige in June 1999.
Nagata indicated the evidence was not strong enough to support the extortion charge, but the judge upheld a charge accusing Ige of stealing from the farmer.
Deputy Public Defender Rick Sing said his client is looking forward to fighting the charges. Ige will be arraigned on March 5.
"We’re certainly pleading not guilty on the rest of the charges and very happy the judge has seen fit to toss extortion," Sing said.
In a criminal complaint filed by Attorney General Earl Anzai last month, Ige is accused of taking $30,000 from an elderly Beverly Hills couple in 1998 in exchange for a promise to erase their daughter’s criminal record here. Ige never did as promised and never paid taxes on the money, prosecutors say.
The former legislator, who lost his Senate seat representing Kailua and Kane‘ohe last September, also faces a second-degree theft charge for allegedly charging the tenant farmer advance rent when he knew his own lease on the Punalu‘u land was being terminated.
Businessman Clayton Hanagami testified yesterday that Ige helped kill a bill in 1997 that prosecutors maintained would have hurt Hanagami’s Kane‘ohe tour boat business, and was asked the following year to deposit a $30,000 check and refund the money to Ige.
The check came from Rita Wolfred, who prosecutors say had met with Ige and Wolfred’s husband, Morris, in Honolulu in February 1998 to discuss expunging their daughter’s criminal record. Hanagami said Ige initially asked for the money to be returned in the form of cash, but Hanagami eventually paid it out — after withholding taxes — in the form of seven checks ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 between Feb. 24 and May 26, 1998. The checks were made out to CNI Consulting, which prosecutors said is owned by Ige’s wife, Caryn.
During cross-examination, Sing asked Hanagami, "He (Ige) didn’t tell you at any time not to tell anybody about this, right?" Hanagami said Ige had not. Sing said the deal was not theft, but rather "a business agreement Mr. Ige could not perform on."
"This is a civil action," Sing said. "It was resolved, there were payments being made (by Ige to return the money), and later, theft charges were brought." Hanagami agreed to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
But Deputy Attorney General Kurt Spohn said Ige’s actions were more akin to that of a "common huckster" or con man. "He told lies to get his money," Spohn said, adding that Ige’s promise to return the money if he could not expunge the record was a ruse.
"He knew in advance he wasn’t going to do this (expunge the record)," Spohn said. "The only thing he was going to do was take their $30,000."
On Friday, farmer Hanh Lam testified that in June 1999, Ige gave him a week to come up with $7,000 in advance rent — even though he had already paid a year’s rent in advance. At about the same time, Ige was $16,800 behind on rent payments to the land’s California owner and had no authority to demand the advance rent for July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001 — a term beyond his own lease, prosecutors said.
Ige, free on his own recognizance, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of first-degree theft, tax evasion or money-laundering.
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