Posted on: Thursday, August 5, 2004

Aduja to provide more records

By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

The state Campaign Spending Commission yesterday decided to continue investigating state Sen. Melodie Aduja's campaign, giving her more time to resolve questions involving checks her campaign wrote to her former husband.

Commission executive director Bob Watada said in a complaint last week that Aduja, D-23rd (Kane'ohe, Kahuku), didn't provide receipts for campaign checks totaling about $2,300 to her ex-husband, Lee Williams, and that some receipts she submitted for other expenditures may have been for personal expenses. Williams was arrested during a drug bust in April.

Watada and Aduja's lawyer, William Harrison, said yesterday they were fairly close to reaching an agreement, which Watada said would involve a fine. Harrison said the campaign should be able to provide the necessary records within a week. He said problems with the campaign reports were technical errors "but we've taken steps to make corrective actions so it won't happen in the future."

An agreement would be subject to approval by the commission, which next meets Sept. 8.

Other alleged violations in the complaint include approving checks to Aduja's campaign treasurer, filing incomplete campaign finance reports, and not disclosing a loan.

In an unrelated case, the commission approved a $21,000 fine for Sen. Cal Kawamoto for not reporting dozens of contribu-tions and for using campaign money for personal expenses. Kawamoto last week agreed to pay the fine through a conciliation agreement and also reimbursed his campaign $30,000.

The conciliation agreement said Kawamoto's campaign finance reports from 1995 to 2003 did not include nearly $29,000 in contributions, but Watada said he didn't believe the omissions were intentional. Watada also said Kawamoto spent about $4,000 in campaign money for personal expenses and spent about $26,000 in campaign money for expenses on an automobile for which the campaign was not the registered owner.

Kawamoto's lawyer, Bert T. Kobayashi Jr., said Kawamoto apologizes and that he and his campaign committee "have learned a lesson on this." Kobayashi also noted the unreported contributions included those that Kawamoto's campaign came forward with after reviewing campaign records.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.