Documents shed light on secretive HPD unit
| • | Police chief was aware of problems within elite unit |
| • | Whistleblower says he never wanted to sue |
| • | Key figures in the Kamakana lawsuit |
By Jim Dooley and Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writers
Nearly two years after decorated Honolulu police Detective Kenneth Kamakana sued the department, alleging corruption and wrongdoing in the top-secret Criminal Intelligence Unit, records the city has fought aggressively to keep confidential are now being made public.
• 1991: Detective Kenneth Kamakana assigned to Honolulu Police Department's elite Criminal Intelligence Unit to probe narcotics and organized crime. • May 2000: Gabriel Aio and Marirose Tangi are among 32 people indicted on gambling charges after CIU-FBI undercover investigation. • July 2000: Acting CIU Capt. Milton Olmos interviews Tangi with Detective Alexander Ahlo, despite FBI and U.S. attorney warning that interview without Tangi's attorney present could compromise prosecution; Kamakana provides copies of Tangi interview tapes to FBI without telling HPD superiors. • August 2000: Kamakana ordered transferred out of CIU; before the transfer, Kamakana and FBI Special Agent Dan Kelly remove investigative files related to Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, transferring them to FBI. • November 2000: Kamakana files federal lawsuit against the city, HPD, Chief Lee Donohue and Olmos, charging his civil rights were violated because he gave evidence of corruption and misconduct to FBI. • June 2001: Internal Affairs investigation of Kamakana ordered. Attorneys for Kamakana and the city enter into an agreement that all documents be filed under a "protective order," allowing documents to be sealed. • 2002: Aio convicted of paying more than $80,000 in bribes to undercover police officer to protect illegal Chinatown gambling operations. Aio had previously served five years in prison for armed robbery. • October 2002: The Advertiser files petition to intervene in the Kamakana lawsuit, asking a judge to unseal documents it believes are public record. City contests ruling. • July 2003: HPD negotiating lawsuit settlement with Kamakana; some case documents released to The Advertiser but others are withheld or heavily blacked out.
As the case nears settlement, documents unsealed after a nine-month legal battle between The Advertiser and the city paint a complex picture of power, police politics, distrust, corruption allegations and conflicted loyalties that raise troubling questions about the department's ties to Hawai'i's criminal underworld.
Details of Detective Kenneth Kamakana's time with the Criminal Intelligence Unit and lawsuit against the city, department
Names and lengthy passages were blacked out on many of the documents to keep the most explosive, or potentially embarrassing, allegations secret. The Police Department argued that the redactions were made to protect the names of undercover officers and criminal informants, whose lives could be endangered if they were exposed. They also argued that making the documents public could harm ongoing investigations.
The unit investigates organized crime — in cooperation with national and international law enforcement agencies — and reports directly to the chief of police, Lee Donohue.
The city has spent nearly $2 million on legal fees and expenses fighting Kamakana's charges. Details of the proposed settlement are being hammered out, but it's believed to call for a payment of an additional $1 million to Kamakana, which would include payment of legal fees he has incurred in fighting the department he has served for nearly 30 years.
City Council budget committee chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said city lawyers recently warned her "to be prepared" for a costly settlement of the Kamakana suit.
"They said it was going to be large," Kobayashi said.
Not a 'team player'
Kamakana specialized in organized crime and narcotics trafficking investigations, often working in partnership with the FBI. He sued the department in November of 2000, alleging that he was transferred out of CIU and investigated by HPD's Internal Affairs division because he gave evidence of CIU wrongdoing to the FBI.
In court documents, the department and Donohue said Kamakana's transfer was not retaliatory but was made in part because Kamakana lacked the "team player" attitude necessary in CIU, which handles some of the most sensitive investigative work in the department.
The captain who notified him of the transfer said at the time that the CIU needed officers "who are faithful to me and the chief," according to a tape recording Kamakana made of the conversation. The department later said in depositions that Kamakana had gone behind a superior's back in arranging to take a training trip to the Mainland, an allegation he strongly denied.
Documents in the suit also show that Kamakana was highly regarded by federal law enforcement officials in Hawai'i who said they were "surprised" and "upset" by questionable CIU activities Kamakana reported to them.
Kamakana said in a deposition that he witnessed and heard reports of wrongdoing by CIU officers that went unpunished by HPD. He finally reported to federal officials improper contact by CIU officers with a defendant in a major federal investigation of organized crime and gambling activities in the Chinatown area of Honolulu.
CIU Detective Alexander Ahlo and then-acting Capt. Milton Olmos interviewed and secretly tape-recorded Marirose Tangi, a defendant in the Chinatown case, and admitted they did so despite being told not to by the FBI and U.S. attorney's office, records show.
The federal authorities testified that interviewing an indicted suspect without her attorney would jeopardize prosecution of the case. Ahlo said in a deposition that he and Olmos felt it was important to meet with Tangi and another woman because the women may have had important information unrelated to the gambling case.
But a transcript of the taped interview shows that, despite initial warnings to Tangi by Ahlo and Olmos that they should not discuss her case, the officers later talked about it with her extensively.
The interview focused in part on the role that undercover officer Earl Koanui played in the gambling probe.
Koanui had pretended to be a corrupt officer who accepted bribes from gambling figures to protect their illegal operations from police raids. He was no longer undercover at the time Ahlo and Olmos met with Tangi.
In court documents filed in response to the suit, Olmos said he and Ahlo were seeking intelligence from Tangi and the other woman, including information that could have shown Koanui was in danger.
"The communication with Tangi and its recording were not the product of any form of misconduct but rather the product of a responsive intelligence investigative agency whose officers responded to informants associated with criminal elements and who offered to provide information," Olmos' response says.
Kamakana and his lawyers alleged in court papers that the Tangi interview was meant to torpedo the prosecution of two other defendants in the Chinatown case: Gabriel Aio and Steve Crouch.
Aio, who at the time was chief of security for the Matson shipping container yard on Sand Island, is described elsewhere in court documents as both an organized crime figure and a personal friend of Ahlo's.
Ahlo was asked under oath about his relationship with Aio and his knowledge of the investigation that targeted Aio. Ahlo's responses were heavily redacted in the documents that were released, but it is clear that the two men knew each other.
Aio was charged with paying more than $80,000 in bribes to Koanui, and later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to six months in a federal detention center. Crouch, a nightclub owner and business partner of Aio's, also pleaded guilty in the case and is to be sentenced this month.
Ahlo told the FBI that "Aio used to provide him (Ahlo) with information that would help identify people who were involved in criminal activities in Chinatown," according to the documents.
Relationships with criminals
The Ahlo-Aio relationship illustrates the secret and sometimes murky nature of police intelligence gathering.
It is important for officers to cultivate underworld sources and understand the corrupt world in which they operate, but there is a danger of becoming too close and losing perspective about their identity and their mission, experts say.
"It is a Criminal Intelligence Unit, and to do their job correctly, they have to develop very close working relationships with people of suspect character," FBI Special Agent Daniel Kelly said in a deposition unsealed last week. "So it's, it is a very gray area."
Later, Kelly said: "The better the source you have, usually that means the source is a very bad person, the better case you have. And it's like playing with fire."
Kelly, who frequently partnered with Kamakana to investigate organized crime cases, said the detective was very good at his job.
"Detective Kamakana can make very good cases because he is able to gather very good intelligence," he said.
But Kelly said "some of the stuff I had heard" about other detectives in CIU "caused me concern."
An earlier incident involving Ahlo and Aio triggered worry throughout the state's criminal intelligence community, according to the documents.
Many were stunned to learn that Ahlo brought Aio to a gathering of top state and federal intelligence officers in January 1999, while Aio was under investigation in the gambling case.
The officers had gathered in a Waikiki hotel suite to unwind after a major conference on organized crime. Aio walked in with Ahlo and his half-brother, convicted murderer Henderson "Henny Boy" Ahlo, an immensely strong man notorious for his ability to tear quarters in half.
Lt. Wesley Wong, a highly regarded former CIU detective, described in a deposition his reaction to seeing the men appear at the conference.
" ... he's bringing in organized crime figures into a conference that's discussing organized crime and law enforcement, so there's other law enforcement agencies there, and for him to bring this guy right into it, it just, it's a total conflict," he testified.
Wong was supervising an undercover officer investigating narcotics operations connected with the gambling probe that had targeted Aio. The officer quickly left the room so he wouldn't be identified.
Detective Ahlo claimed that a Maui police official had asked him to bring Aio to the event, but the official later denied he had made the request, according to court records. Ahlo's explanations about the intelligence conference incident were removed from court documents released to The Advertiser.
Unexpected CIU appearance
Another incident that raised concern, according to Wong, occurred immediately after undercover officer Koanui met with Aio at his King Street bar during the time Aio was making illegal protection payoffs.
The meeting was videotaped by a police surveillance crew, and a camera was still rolling when a group of CIU detectives, led by Olmos, showed up at the bar soon after and went inside, Wong said. Detectives later questioned as part of Kamakana's lawsuit said they were at the bar gathering intelligence.
CIU was not part of the gambling probe and was not supposed to know of Koanui's undercover status. The purpose of the bar visit remains unclear, but no CIU detectives have been accused of wrongdoing related to it.
Within CIU itself, the level of distrust had grown serious, according to court records.
The hotel incident and others prompted Kamakana to begin secretly taping meetings with other CIU officers, and he began recording his suspicions in a diary that remains sealed as evidence in the lawsuit.
Other CIU members testified that the unit had become factionalized and plagued by dissension and jealousy, and that other law enforcement agencies — and even other divisions of the Police Department — were distrustful of the unit.
It was in this atmosphere that Kamakana learned of the Tangi taping and notified the FBI instead of his police superiors.
Among Kamakana's allegations were what he called questionable circumstances surrounding Donohue's selection of Olmos to be a CIU supervisor in June 1998.
According to records unsealed last week, a captain and lieutenant who previously headed the unit were removed by Donohue that month after they presented the chief with evidence of misconduct by a CIU detective. Donohue said he removed the pair because they were not regularly keeping him apprised of CIU activities.
The detective was accused of working at an outside security job during hours he was on police duty. Some officers said Donohue was a close friend of the accused detective's father and in depositions, said they believed the chief hushed up the allegations for his friend.
The chief ordered no internal affairs investigation of the alleged double-dipping detective, who was never disciplined, court records show.
Donohue was asked about the matter in a deposition taken in April 2002, but his answers are blacked out in the copy of the document unsealed by the court. From the point where attorneys began asking the chief about the matter, nearly 16 pages of his responses have been removed from the transcript.
Lt. Grant Loo, one of the CIU leaders replaced by Donohue, said in a deposition that Olmos told him that someone — whose name is blacked out in the deposition transcript — "talked to the chief" and "called in a favor."
"I don't think it's fair for people in specialized units to be able to go out and double-dip the system while people in patrol still have to stay at work and do their job," Loo said.
FBI contacted
In his deposition, Kamakana said he immediately contacted the FBI, rather than his superiors, when he learned of the taped interview Olmos and Ahlo conducted with Tangi.
"I decided to notify the proper authority because I realized that it could hamper or at least damage the federal government's case against a number of indicted individuals in their investigation," he testified.
"Mr. Kamakana's need to go outside of his organization to deal with perceived corruption problems is not unusual at all," David Johnson, associate professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai'i, said in an interview.
"Police whistleblowers around the country are regularly forced to go outside their own forces to draw attention to these kinds of problems," Johnson said.
At the request of FBI agent Kelly, Kamakana also transferred to Kelly about six boxes of records of joint federal-HPD organized crime investigations. The files were removed early one evening from CIU offices at HPD headquarters by Kamakana, Kelly and another CIU officer who helped with the move.
About a month later, Kamakana was transferred out of CIU, his post for nearly a decade. Olmos told him it was because the unit was "kind of moving in a direction where we're gonna need people that are faithful to myself and the chief," according to a transcript of the conversation, which Kamakana secretly taped.
Several officers and police officials who testified in the lawsuit said it was the first-ever involuntary, nondisciplinary transfer of a detective from CIU.
Kamakana was moved to the auto theft detail, described in testimony as an entry-level assignment for recently-promoted detectives.
He sued the city, department, Donohue and Olmos in November 2000, accusing them of illegally retaliating against him for blowing the whistle on the Tangi taping.
Seven months later, in June 2001, the Police Department opened criminal and administrative internal affairs investigations of Kamakana for allegedly stealing or improperly removing the Tangi taping evidence and the CIU files from HPD custody nearly a year before. Kamakana then amended his lawsuit, adding the internal affairs investigations as another example of illegal retaliation against him.
The criminal investigation was short-lived because the prosecutor's office decided there wasn't enough evidence to support a theft charge.
But the administrative probe has dragged on for two more years. It was suspended for three months during an unsuccessful effort to mediate a settlement to the lawsuit, and is expected to be a major sticking point in the current settlement talks.
Kamakana was eventually moved to a narcotics and vice unit, and is currently assigned to a joint federal-police High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force. Olmos and Ahlo were promoted and transferred out of CIU.
If the lawsuit is settled and there is no public airing of the charges Kamakana has made, the allegations may never be put to rest, said Johnson, the UH professor.
"It would be a very great pity if the case is settled in such a manner that the truth, or something approaching it, never comes out," he said.
Staff writer David Waite contributed to this report.
The transfer of Kamakana
Olmos purported to tell Kamakana why he was being transferred. He said that it was a combination of things "kind of moving in a direction where we're gonna need people that are faithful to myself and the Chief." Olmos told Kamakana that he did nothing wrong, that it was nothing personal and that it is "not anything about your work. I mean, you've done good work and I appreciate the work you've done. Thank you for that."
Deposition: Daniel Kelly, FBI
Q: As far as CIU is concerned, what is your understanding of what CIU, the officers in CIU do?
A: It is a Criminal Intelligence Unit, and to do their job correctly, they have to develop very close working relationships with people of suspect character. So it's — it is a very gray area, and it's up to the person who hears the information. You have to weigh and balance everything that you hear and take it into consideration as to what is going on, whether or not it would cause you any concern. But some of the stuff I had heard caused me concern.
Q: But the very nature of the CIU, I guess, charge or activity would require that close relationships be developed with people of, I guess, suspect nature? ...
A: That's correct. The better the source you have, usually that means that source is a very bad person, the better the case you have. And it's like playing with fire; so, that would be correct.
Deposition: Alexander Ahlo, CIU
Q: You think Ken's a good cop?
A: In what sense?
Q: You think Ken does good police work?
A: I think he does thorough investigations. As far as being in a unit where we all work together as a team, my personal opinion is he's not where we can all work together as a team. That's my personal opinion. ...
Q: Did you ever see Ken do anything that was dishonest?
A: Yes, I have.
Q: What did you see him do that was dishonest?
A: It may not be something, well, I've seen him smoke in our office after work hours.
Q: OK. Anything else that you ever saw him do that was dishonest?
A: That's pretty much it. I never did, like I said, I never bothered with what he was doing. I wasn't concerned with what he was, his job was.
Deposition: Kenneth Kamakana
Q: Now, with regard to your claim that you suffered some financial or other type of loss, can you tell me what, if anything, you believe you have lost as a result of the allegations that you have made in this complaint? ...
A: Yes. My reputation and respect. I cherish that.
Q: And what has happened to that?
A: Like I said, I still can empty a room.
Q: When is the last time that occurred?
A: Last week.
Q: And where was this?
A: In the cafeteria.
Q: At HPD?
A: That is correct.
Q: And can you tell me what — I mean just describe for me what occurred?
A: Well, I saw some people and I knew one of them pretty well. When I sat at the table the one that I knew fairly well just continued talking and the other two abruptly left with their meal.
