Ewa defendant
to talk to officials

But Kahapea hasn't been
promised anything, the city's
chief lawyer says

By Gordon Y.K Pang
Star-Bulletin

Michael Kahapea will talk to city attorneys about his claims that supervisors instructed him to misuse money from the Ewa Villages revitalization project.

Renee Yuen, Kahapea's attorney, said city attorneys finally agreed to hear his arguments after months of refusing to do so.

Corporation Counsel David Arakawa, chief lawyer for the city administration, said Kahapea agreed to talk without promises of favor-ml6 Michael

Kahapea able treatment.

The 55-year-old Kahapea spent his first night at Oahu Community Correctional Center last night. He turned himself in earlier yesterday, unable to post $460,000 bail.

Prosecutors say Kahapea, fired property management branch chief for the city, was the ringleader in a scheme that cheated the city out of $5.5 million by billing the city for fake or inflated moving costs.

He is charged with 47 counts of theft, forgery, unlawful ownership or operation of a business, money-laundering, bribery and failure to report income.

Before surrendering to sheriffs, Kahapea took reporters on an tour of Ewa Villages to describe how he was instructed to break rules to make the project go.

Kahapea alleged unnamed supervisors ordered him to use the relocation fund to:

Spend close to $2 million to rehabilitate about 30 old plantation homes that were used as temporary quarters for longtime Ewa Villages residents slated to move elsewhere.

Hire help to clear makeshift dump sites.

Hire people to dispose of chemical, and possibly toxic, waste from the old Ewa Sugar Mill.

Kahapea "was not the person to go get the budget money on an annual basis, he was not the individual that justified the use of the money before the City Council," Yuen said.

Kahapea's supervisors didn't listen to him when he raised questions about the environmental problems and other issues, she said.

Neither Kahapea nor Yuen would say who gave him the orders to spend money for nonrelocation purposes. "There's no question, however, that with (city officials), he will name names," Yuen said.

Yuen said supervisors should have known about irregularities at Ewa Villages because they were accompanying him on visits to the site on a weekly basis.

She called for an independent investigation into Ewa Villages.

Arakawa said the city has already been conducting its investigation. There has been nothing to substantiate Kahapea's claims that higher-ups asked him to do anything illegal or improper, Arakawa said.

As far as housing officials were aware, he said, "funds were spent for legitimate relocation purposes."

While he did not know if relocation funds were used to clean dump sites or remove toxic materials, such activities are not out of the realm of relocation, he said.

The city has asked Yuen to produce written proof documents but, until yesterday, had not heard back, Arakawa said.

The city's investigation, he said, did show that "bids were falsely submitted or rigged so that contracts would be let to Kahapea and his co-conspirators and monies were paid to Kahapea and his co-conspirators and there were kickbacks."

Several City Council members said they were eager to hear Kahapea's claims.

"I think we're all going to try to give him a call," Councilman John DeSoto said.

Councilman Duke Bainum said clearing dump sites and cleaning toxic wastes cannot be considered activities related to relocation.

The questions raised about the toxic waste are particularly troublesome, Bainum said, since an environmental impact statement done on the Ewa Villages revitalization project shows no such concerns.