The Hawai'i Labor Relations Board has already ruled that the names of the guards’ underage accusers can be withheld.

However, Herbert Takahashi, the United Public Workers union attorney representing the guards, said he is waiting until transcripts of yesterday’s board hearing are released in 10 days before he seeks the Circuit Court order to gain information about other sources in the investigation.

Vanessa Chong, executive director of the local ACLU office, said today the union’s action would not budge the ACLU from its refusal to name any sources "or information that by context would lead to the sources being identified."

The question of how much information former ACLU-Hawai'i legal director Brent White can withhold about the investigation has been an issue this week during hearings before the board. White’s findings included reports of rape, brutality and crowded conditions.

The UPW had hoped to get the names of youth facility wards who brought the accusations, with Takahashi arguing that the accused guards have a constitutional right to know who their accusers are.

The labor board backed White’s attorney Jeff Harris in keeping their identities confidential, but yesterday Harris invoked attorney-client privilege in objecting to any questions about the substance of the investigation. He advised White to answer questions only about his arrangements with state officials to set up the inquiry and not on the findings themselves. Harris told the board that it would take a court ruling to compel White to answer substantive questions.

Labor board chairman Brian Nakamura has said he and board member Kathleen Racuya-Markrich believe that the board’s priority should be to protect the "identity and the safety" of the youths interviewed. But yesterday he said he was "disappointed" by Harris’ insistence on a broader attorney-client privilege.

On Sept. 16, guard Li'a "Oli" Olione was indicted by an O'ahu grand jury on 10 counts, including sexual assault, kidnapping, terroristic threatening, extortion and criminal solicitation. He is accused of raping a girl at the facility on June 14 and 15. The girl is between 14 and 16 years old, the indictment said.

On Tuesday, guard Myles Manlinguis, was indicted on charges of intimidating a witness on Sept. 16. According to the indictment, Manlinguis "used force or directed a threat" against a youth at the facility who he believed would be called as a witness, said Dwight Nadamoto, deputy attorney general.

Nadamoto said yesterday that no other indictments of guards are pending.

Nadamoto said he did not know whether Manlinguis was among 13 guards at the youth facility who were identified as troublemakers in a copy of the ACLU report that was given to Gov. Linda Lingle. In late August, the governor reassigned the facility’s administrator and a corrections specialist.