Posted on: Thursday, October 10, 2002
Rodrigues' daughter prospered
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
Three years after receiving her degree from Kaua'i Community College, the daughter of United Public Workers union leader Gary Rodrigues was running her own consulting business for an annual income of more than $142,000, a federal court was told yesterday.
Not only that, she was working another full-time job, prosecutors said.
Rodrigues and his daughter, Robin Haunani Rodrigues Sabatini, were indicted last year on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud a health-care benefit program and money laundering.
Rodrigues alone is charged with embezzling labor organization assets and accepting kickbacks in connection with an employee welfare benefit plan.
They both deny the charges.
The federal government says Rodrigues devised a plan to overcharge union members for health and dental insurance so he could use the surplus to steer consulting contracts to his daughter and his former girlfriend's stepfather, with some of the money coming back to him.
In federal Judge David Ezra's courtroom yesterday, William Hancock said Robin Rodrigues was on the staff of a Kapa'a, Kaua'i, accounting company when he bought it in 1993 and renamed it William Hancock and Co. CPA Inc.
Hancock said Robin Rodrigues, who had recently completed her two-year community college degree, was a full-time employee who worked on tax returns, bookkeeping and financial statements. In 1996 or 1997, he said, she formed her own company, Four Winds RSK Inc., and told him it was going to take on work referred by her father, Gary Rodrigues, providing analysis of insurance benefits.
Hancock said Robin Rodrigues devoted two to four days a month to the new business. Later, she cut that to one or two days a month, he said.
Prosecutors said she was making more than $142,000 a year from the Four Winds business. One issue at trial will be how much work she did for that money.
In other testimony yesterday, Lynne Miura, former marketing manager for Hawaii Dental Service, said she had met with Gary Rodrigues in January 1992 to see whether he was interested in having her company provide dental insurance to UPW members.
In response to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni, who is prosecuting the case, Miura said Rodrigues entered into a contract with Hawaii Dental Service and asked that 1 percent of the premiums paid by union members be retained for administrative costs and another 1 percent to pay consulting fees.
Miura said Rodrigues also asked for a recommendation on whom to hire as a consultant on the dental plan, and was given a name, not disclosed in court. But the name Robin Rodrigues or Four Winds RSK Inc never came up in the discussions, Miura said.
In response to questions from Gary Rodrigues' lawyer, Doron Weinberg, Miura said it was not uncommon for Hawaii Dental Service contracts with other unions to call for retention of 1 or 2 percent of premiums paid to the company to provide for the unions' administrative expenses or to hire a consultant.
And Miura said the dental contract negotiated by Rodrigues resulted in UPW members paying amounts equal to or less than they would have been charged for comparable insurance under other plans, including the state health plan.
