Posted at 8:54 p.m., Friday, August 10, 2007
Liquor inspector sentenced to prison
Advertiser Staff
A Honolulu Liquor Commission inspector yesterday was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison for extorting owners of two bars and getting at least $2,000.James Rodenhurst, 57, who spent 10 years as a Honolulu police officer and four years with the commission, pleaded guilty in February to the conspiracy extortion charge.
Rodenhurst was one of seven law enforcement officers charged last year with federal felonies as a result of a massive and wide-ranging FBI wiretap investigation into a cockfight gambling operation in Waialua, drug transactions and other illegal activities.
Rodenhurst, a night-shift supervisor with the liquor commission, admitted that from 2004 to January 2005, he and Herbert Naone, 57, a former police officer and former chief of Aloha Stadium security, received money from the operators of the Volcanoes and Sin City nightclubs in exchange for notifying them when liquor commission inspectors would be going to the establishments.
Naone pleaded guilty to the extortion charge earlier. In addition, five Honolulu police officers were charged as well as about 30 other individuals.
