Posted on: Saturday, December 7, 2002
Key figure admits campaign violations
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
The head of one of the state's largest engineering firms turned himself in to police yesterday and has agreed to plead guilty to money laundering and a campaign spending violation in connection with excessive donations made to several Hawai'i politicians.
Michael Matsumoto, 57, is expected to make a court appearance in the next week to plead guilty and will cooperate with city prosecutors in an ongoing campaign spending violations investigation, his attorney, Howard Luke, said yesterday. Matsumoto is the president and chief executive officer of SSFM International.
Matsumoto is the first person to acknowledge that he violated campaign spending laws in connection with the city prosecutor's investigation into illegal political contributions.
Luke said his client wanted to come clean to save others involved in the scheme from prosecution.
But Luke also went on to say that the information Matsumoto has isn't expected to implicate the campaigns of either Mayor Jeremy Harris or former Gov. Ben Cayetano in any wrongdoing.
Matsumoto was booked yesterday on one count each of money laundering and a campaign spending violation and released.
Money laundering is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, while the campaign violation is a misdemeanor. But Luke said his client has agreed to cooperate and isn't likely to receive the maximum sentence.
A grand jury was set to hear testimony last week regarding contributions that people connected to SSFM made to the campaigns of Harris, Cayetano, and other elected officials. But the proceedings were postponed because of the pending agreement between prosecutors and Matsumoto.
"Part of our agreement with the government is they will not pursue charges against those named donors. (Matsumoto's) major concerns were for those individuals who had made campaign contributions at his request, which actually exceeded the amounts that an individual could make to either a city and county or state candidate," Luke said. "It also enables his company to continue to serve the community as an engineering firm."
Luke would not go into details of the agreement and he did not know how many others were involved in the scheme.
According to Campaign Spending Commission records, SSFM officers and employees, and their relatives, donated at least $85,000 to Harris since 1996 and gave nearly that amount to Cayetano. Company officers and directors asked people to contribute to the two campaigns, then reimbursed them to evade state contribution limits, according to court documents supporting a subpoena the commission issued in March.
Luke emphasized that the large contributions by SSFM were not made in exchange for assurances that Matsumoto's firm would receive government contracts.
"In SSFM's case (awarding of contracts) was done strictly on merit and well within state and federal guidelines and regulations," Luke said. "If there was something going on, Mr. Matsumoto knows nothing about it."
