Posted on: Friday, August 23, 2002

New focus in Harris probe

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Prosecutors probing Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign fund-raising practices and city contracts have also begun interviewing City Council members about money that the city transferred to a nonprofit group headed by a key campaign official.

Investigators want to know whether a $100,000 council appropriation in 1999 to help pay for an Environmental Summit was legally shifted to the Friends of the City and County of Honolulu and properly spent and accounted for.

The group's president is attorney Peter Char, deputy treasurer and chief fund-raiser for Harris' aborted campaign for governor. He could not be reached for comment, but Harris' lawyer blasted the probe's new tack as a "fishing expedition."

"If this investigation has reached this level after nine months of torture and they're making suggestions like this, it's out of control," said attorney William McCorriston, who also represents the Friends. "This is just an absolute smear."

The group's purpose was to host special city events using public and private money, and all its financial records were turned over to investigators months ago, McCorriston said.The documents show that all expenditures were authorized and accounted for correctly, according to McCorriston.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment. But the Friends group, formed in 1995, was previously criticized for initially refusing to make its financial records public. Harris ordered the information released in 1999, after state and city officials questioned who the donors were and how the money was spent.

The biggest contributor that year was Mitsunaga and Associates, a firm headed by contractor Dennis Mitsunaga, who recently served as chairman of the Harris campaign's fund-raising committee.

The company gave the Friends $10,000 to use for the environmental conference, and the list included many other firms and people who had been awarded city contracts or had donated to Harris' campaign. The group had raised nearly $400,000 at that point, and a 2000 tax return listed assets of $134,000.

People interviewed by prosecutors said it did not appear that council members were suspected of any wrongdoing. Councilmen John Henry Felix and Jon Yoshimura declined to discuss questions raised by investigators.

Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.