Posted on: Friday, November 8, 2002

Airport official guilty

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

A former state airports official yesterday became the first person to admit his involvement in an alleged theft and bribery scheme at Honolulu International Airport.

Harry H. Shibuya, 61, pleaded guilty in Circuit Court to being an accomplice to first-degree theft. He faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine when he is sentenced.

Shibuya is the first person prosecuted from the investigation that centered on millions of dollars in airport construction and repair contracts awarded by airport personnel to private firms since 1995.

Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Goya said Shibuya will be cooperating with law enforcement officials in this case as part of an agreement with the state attorney general's office.

Shibuya's attorneys could not be reached for comment yesterday. Shibuya would not comment.

At least 10 other airport and construction officials have been arrested in connection with the investigation into abuse of the state procurement law. Goya said he expects other guilty pleas in the case.

"Obviously it's a good start and hopefully we'll be able to wrap the other ones up fairly quickly, but you never know," Goya said. "We'll just have to take them as they come."

Shibuya worked with the airports division for 10 years and served as the supervising inspector for the maintenance section from February 1999 to Jan. 31, 2002. As part of his job, Shibuya was responsible for ensuring that repair work was identified and completed properly, Goya said.

Shibuya was charged with taking part in a scheme to illegally award contracts for airport work and services to certain construction companies, Goya said.

The contracts were worth less than $25,000 each and were awarded under an informal bidding process intended to simplify and speed up the process of getting the work done.

The law requires that at least three price quotations be obtained for work or services and the contract would be awarded to the lowest bidder. But under orders from "people who were higher up the chain than he was," Shibuya would contact just one contractor, Goya said.

In turn, he said, the contractor would provide a bid that would be eventually approved and two other bogus bids.

"Because they (contractor) were part of the scheme they understood that once they got contacted the next step was to go ahead and get two other quotations," Goya said. "How that was done was left up to them."

Shibuya also failed to monitor the work and "when the bills would come in he would simply sign off," Goya said.

Goya said, however, that Shibuya was not charged with profiting from the alleged scheme. He could not say what the value of those contracts were.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8025.