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Probe of trustees cost
By Rick Daysog
AG’s office $3.4M
Star-BulletinThe attorney general's office has spent $3.4 million on its three-year investigation of the former trustees of the Kamehameha Schools.
The attorney general's office said it paid $1.27 million to the private investigative firm of Goodenow and Associates Inc. and $415,120 to the Washington D.C.-based law firm of Caplin & Drysdale for their work on the state's civil and criminal investigations of the past board members of the $6 billion estate.
The investigation also cost the state about $1.4 million in staffing and administrative expenses.
The state's civil inquiry -- which includes efforts to remove the trust's former board members and surcharge the past board members for alleged damages they caused -- will cost taxpayers about $1.58 million.
The state's criminal investigation has so far cost the state $438,843. That criminal probe has netted criminal theft indictments against former trustees Henry Peters and Richard "Dickie" Wong, but the cases were thrown out recently by a state judge. The state is appealing the dismissals.
Attorney General Earl Anzai said the state hopes to recover some of the costs through court-actions aimed at the estate's former trustees. Anzai noted that the estate's expenses were "unnecessarily large" due to the efforts by the estate's past and current trustees to contest various subpoenas and requests for information.
"I don't mind resistance if they have merit but I do mind spending money to get access to records that we have the rights to," Anzai said.
The state's expenses are less than half those incurred by the Kamehameha Schools and its former trustees in the three-year controversy, which included a removal suit by two former trustees and investigations by the state, the Internal Revenue Service, court-appointed fact-finder and the trust's court-appointed master.
The trust -- under former board members Peters, Wong, Oswald Stender, Gerard Jervis and Lokelani Lindsey -- paid about $8 million to various law firms, accounting firms and consultants involved in the controversy.
Bishop Estate Archive
