Kauai chief still LIHUE >> In the latest of several sudden sharp turns in its investigation of Police Chief George Freitas, the Kauai Police Commission dropped one of the three charges remaining against him and found him guilty of two others.
in the dark
after ruling
The commission finds Freitas
guilty, but does not give
him a copy of the complaintBy Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.comThe commission voted to send Freitas two written letters of reprimand for allowing his girlfriend, Elizabeth Goynes, to ride as a passenger in his unmarked police car and for being disrespectful to a subordinate, Inspector Melvin Morris, during a meeting in Freitas' office.
The commissioners dropped a more serious charge of hindering the prosecution of a police officer.
Freitas said he refused to allow a detective to re-interview the officer's wife because the detective planned to reveal confidential information from a separate case to the woman.
Freitas was placed on paid suspension by a secret commission vote Aug. 10 and allowed to return to work earlier this month.
The commission borrowed investigator John Ko from the Honolulu Police Commission and put him up in the Kauai Marriott Resort while he conducted more than 150 interviews.
Freitas filed a lawsuit against Kauai County, Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, County Attorney Hartwell Blake and the police commission members in U.S. District Court, which remains to be resolved.
A federal judge threw out a claim by Freitas that he was denied his rights to due process because he was not given a written, detailed statement of charges and was not allowed a hearing by the commission, both of which are required by the Kauai County Charter.
But the judge left the door open for Freitas to renew the charges if the commission did not give him a fair hearing. The commission voted yesterday without giving him any hearing at all.
Freitas, who again asked for and again was refused a copy of the complaint against him, was fuming after yesterday's meeting.
"I'd still like to know exactly what I'm supposed to have done so I can answer the complaint," Freitas said. "More than 150 interviews and this is the best we can do?"
Freitas said the whole matter could have been resolved at the beginning of the case if the commission "had the courage" to show him the complaint and discuss it with him.
The complaint, which contained allegations as minor as accusing the chief of parking his car incorrectly, was filed by Morris and Lt. Alvin Seto, the investigating officer in the case against the police officer. Mayor Maryanne Kusaka attended all of the closed-door sessions of the commission, except the meeting yesterday.
"Who drove this thing? I have no idea," Freitas said.
Freitas was hired in 1995, Kusaka's first year in office, by a police commission appointed by former Mayor Joanna Yukimura.