State legal officials to face questions
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
A Honolulu attorney who claims a state agency is unable to account for up to $10 million in child support payments got a judge's OK yesterday to question two state deputy attorneys general under oath to see what they know about internal problems.
But Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna stopped short of giving attorney Francis O'Brien the go-ahead to question state Attorney General Earl Anzai about problems within the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
McKenna told O'Brien that he could begin by questioning Deputy Attorney General Diane Taira, who represents the agency, and her predecessor, Linda Martell, about their knowledge of problems at the agency.
In addition, O'Brien is scheduled to interview agency administrator Arnold Enoki and his predecessor, Michael Meaney, to see if they can answer questions about why the agency allegedly has millions of dollars it cannot account for.
O'Brien claims that accounting practices are so shoddy, the agency has no way of knowing who has paid money in the form of child support payments or who is owed money from the agency but has not been paid.
He is the lawyer for a class-action lawsuit in behalf of people who either didn't get their child support payments or didn't get them on time.
McKenna scheduled another hearing for June 24 and will decide after that if it is necessary for O'Brien to question Anzai about operations at the agency, which is a division of the attorney general's office.
McKenna prohibited O'Brien from questioning state Auditor Marion Higa about two of her office's reports that were highly critical of the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
Deputy Attorney General Charles Fell and Taira had argued that "attorney-client" privilege should prevent O'Brien from questioning Taira and Martell about their knowledge of problems at the agency.
But McKenna said O'Brien could question Taira and Martell so long as he did not ask questions concerning legal advice the two gave the agency.
O'Brien contends that the agency stopped using the first of three checking accounts with a balance of about $1.2 million because it could no longer say where the money had come from or to whom it was owed. The agency then had to abandon a second checking account, this time with about $4.7 million in it, for the same reason, O'Brien said.
He told McKenna that the agency has moved on to a third account, which has a daily average balance of $4 million to $6 million but should have a zero balance.
"It is a public agency, performing a public function with the public's money," said O'Brien, who accused the agency of trying for the past several years to avoid public scrutiny of its accounting procedures.
The agency is entrusted with keeping track of people ordered by the courts to pay child support, usually the result of divorce or paternity cases. In most cases, the employer of the person who has a child support payment obligation is required to withhold the amount from the employee's paycheck and send a separate check to the Child Support Enforcement Agency.
By state and federal law, the agency has no more than two days to log the check in and pass the payment on to the intended recipient.
Fell said it was "premature" for O'Brien to claim that the agency cannot account for millions of dollars.
"We will not agree that the CSEA cannot account for the money," Fell said. "We are attempting to do so and are making significant progress," he said.
Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.
