Airport contractor pleads guilty
By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer
A conspirator in the elaborate and lucrative bid-rigging scheme at Honolulu International Airport paid $8,100 in secret "kickbacks" and "political donations" to a state official in return for "exclusive" rights to overpriced electrical repair contracts at the airport, according to a court document filed yesterday.
Bert T. Shiosaki, head of CBS Electric, made the admissions in a plea agreement reached with the state attorney general's office. Shiosaki, 35, pleaded guilty yesterday to a felony theft charge, agreed to repay at least $145,000 to the state, and will testify against others allegedly involved in the multi-million-dollar conspiracy when the case moves from state to federal court, according to the agreement.
Shiosaki said he was invited in 1999 to join the bid-rigging conspiracy by Dennis Hirokawa, "a long-time family friend" who was airport maintenance superintendent, and Robert Lee, head of maintenance inspectors at the airport.
Shiosaki said in the plea agreement that Lee first approached him and instructed him how to submit bids that "guaranteed" him the contracts, but "it was my impression that Dennis Hirokawa was the person controlling the bid-rigging scheme."
Neither Lee nor Hirokawa has been charged in the case, which involves more than $9.5 million in "small" airport repair and maintenance contracts — worth no more than $25,000 each — awarded through informal bidding procedures since 1997. The contracts have been under investigation by the state for more than two years. Hirokawa was arrested in 2002 and his airport office was searched, but formal charges have not been filed against him. He retired in 2002.
Earlier this month, Hirokawa and another now-retired airport official, Richard Okada, were named as defendants in a civil suit filed by the state attorney general to recover at least $1.2 million from alleged members of the conspiracy. Contractors Michael and Frances Furukawa and Wesley Uemura were alleged in the civil suit to be major players in the bid-rigging conspiracy. All three were arrested by the state in 2002 but have not been charged with a criminal offense. Okada, former head of the airports visitor information program, also was arrested and his office was searched, but he has not been charged. He retired in 2002.
Attorneys for Hirokawa, Okada, the Furukawas and Uemura declined comment or denied wrongdoing by their clients when reached for comment by The Advertiser this week. Lee did not return a call for comment.
In his plea agreement, Shiosaki said that about a year after he joined the bid-rigging conspiracy, he was "asked to make kickbacks in the form of 'political' donations or other favors." It is not clear in the plea agreement whether political donations were, in fact, made or who might have gotten them.
Hirokawa asked Shiosaki to make donations to cover "receipts" that Hirokawa showed him, and Shiosaki complied, the plea agreement said. He said he made other "donations" when Hirokawa asked.
"At one point, Hirokawa told me that the money I gave to him was not for him, but was to cover expenses that were 'political' in nature," Shiosaki said.
"The largest political contribution Hirokawa asked for at any one time was $5,000," Shiosaki said. He admitted paying that $5,000, plus $1,500 to cover "receipts," $1,000 for the "Airport Division Christmas kitty" and $600 to support a golf tournament. Shiosaki said he also gave Hirokawa an air conditioner.
Shiosaki said he inflated his bills to the state as much as possible after he "realized, over time, that I could pad my bills and not worry about being caught."
He said he was at a meeting in Okada's office in the main airport terminal in 2000 or 2001 where "ways in which the state procurement system could be circumvent-ed" were discussed.
"I did not know what connection, if any, Okada had with maintenance work at (the airport), but I did hear that Okada was politically connected," Shiosaki said. Others at the meeting, he said, were Okada, Michael Furukawa, Wesley Uemura and Arthur Inada.
Inada also pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge in the airport case last month, has agreed to repay at least $300,000 and to testify against others in federal court.
After the investigation began, Shiosaki said, he attended four meetings with Michael Furukawa, Uemura, Inada, Okada and Inada in which Furukawa encouraged everyone "not to say anything" to the investigators.
During the first meeting, at Furukawa's house, "Okada was upset because he didn't know why he was being involved with the investigation," the plea agreement said.
Okada also said "he had helped a number of people and that maybe those people could help him or the others who were at the meeting with the case," the agreement said.
Okada said one such person was then-Department of Transportation director Brian Minaai, but Okada later said at another meeting that "Minaai did not do anything to help anyone with the investigation."
Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Goya said another plea agreement, from painting contractor Herbert Hirota, was scheduled to be filed yesterday but has been delayed until next week.
Another agreement is also expected to be filed in state court in the near future, then the investigation will be turned over to federal authorities, Goya said.
Former state Attorney General Earl Anzai said in 2002 that the U.S. Attorney's office had become involved in the case because it had greater "investigative resources" and because criminal penalties in federal court are stiffer.
Reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.
