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Prosecutor places
Ewa blame
on Kahapea
A prosecutor charges he
By Gordon Pang
diverted $5.8 million from
the housing project
and Jaymes Song
Star-BulletinFired city housing official Michael Kahapea broke the trust bestowed by his bosses at the city to funnel $5.8 million to himself, family and friends, Deputy Prosecutor Randal Lee said this morning during opening arguments of the Ewa Villages fraud trial.
"Ewa Villages was an honest project with a dishonest result," Lee told the eight-man, four-woman jury while pointing to Kahapea.
The Ewa Villages project, following the city's successful home-building venture in West Loch, was designed to bring affordable housing opportunities to housing-starved families in the early 1990s.
Kahapea was to relocate companies from Ewa Villages to make way for improvements planned by the city. He was given the assignment because he was considered an expert in the area and was well-trusted, Lee said, noting that the defendant was formerly an agency employee of the year.
Lee outlined for jurors how Kahapea, along with city fair-housing officer Norman Tam, now deceased, were in charge of all aspects of the relocation project.
Kahapea, together with friends and family, set up bogus moving companies and then had checks from the city delivered to them, Lee said.
When questioned by superiors about why the costs of the relocations were so high, Kahapea told them it was the tenants who had selected the movers, Lee said. In fact, Kahapea had the tenants sign blank reimbursement forms and filled in information about the bogus movers himself, the prosecutor said.
Several of the tenants presumably moved by the bogus movers still remain, Lee said, including American Hauling, American Moving and the Ewa Beauty Shop.
Kahapea is charged with 47 counts of theft, bribery, money laundering, forgery and illegal ownership of a business.
Donald Wilkerson, Kahapea's attorney, laid blame on Mayor Jeremy Harris and other supervisors.
"Mayor Harris is responsible for the City and County of Honolulu," Wilkerson said. "Mayor Harris is responsible for Ewa Villages.
"It was not for the people," he said. "It was for politicians, for the Big Five (companies) and for Oahu sugar."
He said some of the funds were used to rehabilitate homes and clean dump sites, projects that were not supposed to be covered by the relocation funds.
"One of Mayor Harris' favorite sayings was 'Get the job done' and that's what Mr. Kahapea did," Wilkerson said.
Seven of eight other defendants in the case have pleaded out and are cooperating with the prosecution. The other defendant, Stephen Swift, is standing trial with Kahapea.
The trial is expected to last two months.
