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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 29, 2002

EDITORIAL
Ige sentence begins restoration of faith

That former state Sen. Marshall Ige is going to prison is a tribute, ultimately, to the system of government that Ige himself so cynically sought to manipulate to his own ends.

Ige has been sentenced to six months, which led one of his victims, a Vietnamese orchid farmer named Hanh Lam, to declare through an interpreter that his experience with the criminal justice system now gives him "strong faith" in the United States. It isn't every country, as Lam well knows, that puts powerful political figures behind bars.

Ige was sentenced for his conviction on unrelated charges that he obtained money under false pretenses:

  • He forced Lam to pay advance rent on the land he subleased from Ige, even though his rent was paid up.
  • He obtained $30,000 from a California couple in exchange for his efforts to get a criminal conviction against their daughter expunged — a process that doesn't require the services of a legislator.

Ige earlier pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of filing inaccurate campaign spending reports.

The picture that emerges is undeniably ugly. It's a picture of money flowing to a sitting state senator because of the power (or perceived power) he has to do favors for people or to cause them harm.

Ige's fall from public service leaves a nasty cloud hanging over the political process here that will take a great deal of effort to dispel. But his prison sentence is a start.