Posted on: Thursday, June 21, 2001
Aide to councilman Mirikitani grilled about tape
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
A former aide to City Councilman Andy Mirikitani told a federal court jury yesterday that he wore a recording device supplied by the FBI to a meeting with Mirikitani in February 2000 in hopes of getting Mirikitani to talk about a bonus he gave the aide in return for an alleged kickback.
But the aide, Jonn Serikawa, said every time he tried to raise the issue, Mirikitani would hold up his hands and change the topic.
In response to questions from Mirikitani's lawyer, John Edmunds, Serikawa said he knew FBI officials were hoping to get tape recorded evidence of Mirikitani talking about giving Serikawa the bonus in exchange for a kickback. But he said it never dawned on him to disregard whatever signals Mirikitani was giving him about changing the topic.
"Is it true that we don't see the word 'kickback' anywhere in the transcript (of the February 2000 meeting) and don't hear it anywhere on the tape," Edmunds asked Serikawa.
"Correct," Serikawa replied.
Mirikitani, 45, is on trial on charges of theft, bribery, extortion, wire fraud and witness tampering. His girlfriend, Sharron Bynum, is accused of aiding and abetting in the theft, bribery and extortion cases.
Mirikitani is accused of paying Serikawa and another former aide a total of nearly $26,600 in bonuses in exchange for them giving him and his campaign more than $6,800.
Edmunds has tried to attack Serikawa's credibility, having him admit on the stand he has a prior drug conviction.
During his testimony yesterday, Serikawa said he smoked marijuana most recently on June 3 and stopped the practice because Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Seabright, who is prosecuting the case against Mirikitani, told him to.
Garrett Serikawa, Jonn Serikawa's father, testified yesterday that his son called him a day or so after Mirikitani allegedly proposed the bonus-kickback deal.
The senior Serikawa, who retained an honorary position with the Honolulu branch of a national certified public accounting firm at the time, said he told his son that what Mirikitani was proposing was wrong. He said he learned a few weeks later that his son had agreed to the proposal anyway.
In response to a question from Mirikitani's lawyer, Garrett Serikawa said that at one point he told his son that accepting a bonus from Mirikitani and giving some of the bonus back to Mirikitani was not illegal, although he believed that for Mirikitani to propose such a scheme would be illegal.
"I was talking off the top of my head," Garrett Serikawa said in explaining his reasons for telling his son it was not illegal to accept the money.
The prosecution expects to complete its case against Mirikitani this morning.
