Aoki pleads guilty
By Harold Morse
in Middle Street
relocation scam
Star-BulletinShiro Aoki, who ran a fake company called RC Movers, yesterday entered guilty pleas in a relocation scam to move Middle Street businesses.
Aoki entered guilty pleas in Circuit Court to one count each of second-degree theft, second-degree forgery and money laundering, agreeing to testify against fired housing official Michael Kahapea, said Randal Lee, deputy prosecutor.
The maximum penalty is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count.
"When he pled guilty, he told the court that there was no such company (RC Movers), in the sense that there was no equipment or no employees to move anyone, and that he was following the instructions of Michael Kahapea," Lee said.
The city relocation of businesses on Middle Street was to make way for TheBus headquarters in the early 1990s. Kahapea and others were indicted in the Middle Street case last month for first- and second-degree theft, forgery, racketeering, money laundering and bribery.
The Middle Street indictments grew out of the city's inquiry into the Ewa Villages revitalization project, in which the city was billed for moving costs that were inflated or work that was not done.
Kahapea, former property division chief for the city Housing Department, was indicted in May 1998 in the Ewa Villages scheme.
He also was in charge of relocating two businesses from Middle Street. In that project, the city spent $950,000 to move Hawaii Meat Co. and Consumer Auto and Tire Service Center. But 75 percent of the cost -- or $657,000 -- reportedly didn't go for work done but was funneled to RC Movers, a phony company created at Kahapea's request to send money to himself and others, Lee said.
