Suit against HPD goes to trial after failed settlement
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Settlement negotiations broke down in a lawsuit alleging corruption and misconduct in the Honolulu Police Department and the case is now set to go to trial next month, potentially drawing the department into a public examination of investigative practices and relationships between officers and criminal figures.
In court papers, attorneys for Police Chief Lee Donohue said the case involves such sensitive information about ongoing investigations that they may ask for the trial to be closed, a highly unusual move that would be challenged by the news media and possibly others.
The case in federal court has already cost the city as much as $1.5 million in legal fees.
Detective Kenneth Kamakana, a 29-year HPD veteran who has specialized in investigating organized crime and narcotics trafficking cases, claims he was transferred out of the Criminal Intelligence Unit and investigated by fellow officers after he gave evidence of police misconduct to the FBI.
Donohue, who oversees the CIU, has denied the charges and depicts Kamakana as a lone-wolf detective who distrusted his superiors and "surreptitiously removed" confidential files "from CIU's secured premises."
The list of witnesses who may be called to testify includes high-ranking police department officials, agents from the local FBI office and staff members from the U.S. attorney's office. Steven Alm, former U.S. attorney for Hawai'i and now a state judge, is listed as a witness for the plaintiff and defendants. Another former U.S. attorney for Hawai'i, Dan Bent, is also on the witness list.
Others listed as witnesses are Gabriel Aio, former chief of security for Matson Navigation Co., who was convicted last year of paying more than $80,000 in bribes to undercover police officer Earl Koanui to protect illegal Chinatown gambling games from police raids.
Koanui also is listed as a witness in the trial.
"It is anticipated that Detective Koanui will testify as to ... his concerns for his safety as an undercover officer, given the closeness of certain members of CIU to Gabe Aio," said Kamakana's lawyer, William McCorriston, in a pretrial statement filed earlier this month.
Another name on the witness list is Henderson "Henny Boy" Ahlo Jr., convicted in 1978 of the organized-crime slaying of Big Island gambling figure Benjamin "Benny" Madamba. Ahlo is the half brother of CIU officer Alexander "Charley Boy" Ahlo.
Officer Ahlo brought Henderson Ahlo and Gabriel Aio to the hospitality room of a 1999 statewide police Criminal Intelligence Unit conference at the Hawaiian Regent Hotel in Waikiki, according to Kamakana's lawsuit.
Aio was under active investigation by the FBI and HPD at the time, and an undercover police officer assigned to CIU had to be removed from the hospitality room "out of concern for his safety," according to McCorriston's pretrial statement.
Listed as a document to be introduced at the trial is aflier distributed inside HPD for a golf tournament called "Golf for Gabe," organized to help pay for Aio's legal defense.
The legal filings do not describe who organized or attended the event. Almost all of the documents filed in the lawsuit are sealed from public view. Attorneys for the city argued, and Kamakana's lawyers agreed, that public exposure would compromise sensitive police investigations and jeopardize the safety of officers and informants.
The Advertiser went to court to challenge the broad range of the secrecy orders. Last week, federal Magistrate Judge Leslie Kobayashi ordered the documents unsealed unless the parties can justify the confidentiality claims of each document. The Advertiser has the right to argue against confidentiality, Kobayashi ruled.
Donohue's attorneys said in a pretrial statement filed last week that the trial, or large portions of it, might have to be closed to the public.
"This case involves important, secret and sensitive law enforcement information," Donohue's lawyer John Zalewski said in the statement.
Jeffrey Portnoy, the attorney for The Advertiser, said "there will be strenuous objections to any attempt to close any portion of the trial," adding that this case "involves serious allegations of corruption and misconduct in the police department."
The city, Donohue and his co-defendant, HPD Capt. Milton Olmos, argue in the suit that Kamakana has suffered no damage. He was not fired but transferred to another job in the department and is now working at a higher rate of pay, assigned to a joint HPD-federal task force that targets drug trafficking in Hawai'i.
Kamakana said his transfer and the subsequent criminal and administrative investigations of him conducted by internal affairs violated his civil rights and the Hawai'i Whistleblowers Protection Act, which protects individuals who report illegal and improper activities.
Attorneys for Kamakana, Donohue, Olmos and the city did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the lawsuit. HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the officers involved in the case are prohibited from speaking publicly about it.
