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Impostor bedevils
Campbell heiress
A Philadelphia-area cafeteria worker, who claims she is the wealthy heiress Abigail K. Kawananakoa, is under criminal investigation for allegedly obtaining a $2.1 million check from the Internal Revenue Service that was intended for Kawananakoa.
Abigail Kawananakoa: Her refund grabber will not go away
And, if the allegations are true, this is not only identity theft but a big embarrassment for the federal tax agency that in March 2004 sued Roberts for using the same Social Security number to obtain Kawananakoa's $2.1 million refund check for the 2003 tax year.
In that civil case against Roberts, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found on Sept. 9, 2004, that Roberts owes the United States an unidentified balance of the $2.1 million the government was unable to recover when it seized her bank accounts and confiscated a new $28,218 Ford Explorer and her son's newly purchased $59,000 Cadillac SUV.
However, the federal judge denied the IRS's request for a permanent court injunction to prevent Roberts from using the Social Security number again.
In an interview Friday with the Star-Bulletin, Roberts said she used the same Social Security number again on her 2004 tax return.
IRS Special Agent Francis "Skip" Bedics, who works in the criminal investigations division in Pennsylvania, said Friday, "I really can't comment on a criminal case, since it's an ongoing criminal investigation."
Bedics declined to comment on how Roberts was able to defeat safeguards the agency presumably put into place to prevent another occurrence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello in Philadelphia declined to confirm or deny the criminal investigation.
But Friday, Roberts herself told the Star-Bulletin that she was under investigation for a second time for using the Kawananakoa Social Security number, which she claims is hers.
"I used the Social Security number (again) because it is my Social Security number," said Roberts. "I was supposed to get $2.1 million. But I have not had my day in court for that and I am not supposed to talk about it."
Roberts declined to answer further questions. She only said, "I regret that no one believes I am telling the truth. And that hurts."
Roberts was in Honolulu Friday to attend a Probate Court hearing so that she could stake a claim to the $2.2 billion Estate of James Campbell, identifying herself as Kawananakoa who has a 12.5 percent interest in the estate.
"I am the real Abigail Kekaulike Kawananakoa," said Roberts in a soft singsong voice as she stood before Probate Judge Colleen Hirai. She told the court her real mother was Liliuokalani Kawananakoa and that there was DNA to prove that she is a Kawananakoa.
Under the 1900 will of James Campbell, a wealthy Scottish land-owner in Hawaii, the estate is required to terminate in January 2007.
The estate, once Hawaii's eighth biggest private landowner, became an economic force beginning in the mid-1800s when its lands in Kahuku, Ewa and Maui hosted wealthy sugar cane plantations. As the sugar industry died, the estate diversified into real estate investment and was the force behind the building of Oahu's "Second City" of Kapolei.
The Kawananakoa stake is estimated to be at least $250 million.
Kawananakoa, who is 79 and also a descendent of Hawaiian royalty, declined through her attorney, James H. Wright, to comment on Roberts, the IRS or the estate to the Star-Bulletin.
During Friday's court hearing, Hirai asked Wright if he had any response to Roberts' declaration.
Wright told the court: "She's been in the courts many times, including the criminal courts in Philadelphia. I don't want to be unkind ... but her problems seem to be more than legal in nature."
Hirai approved the trustees' list of rightful beneficiaries, which did not include Roberts. Roberts can seek reconsideration and can appeal.
"The government knows who I am," said Roberts after the hearing as she sat in the hallway with a handful of wills and other documents. "Those lawyers have lied about me for so many years. But I have 30 days to tell them who I am."
Wright did say that Roberts has "been trying for more than 10 years to claim that she is Abigail Kawananakoa. She has tried to hit her bank accounts and even appeared at ceremonial functions and even appeared at family funerals."
Wright, who described Roberts "as very smooth," said that in 2002 Roberts successfully slapped a "fraud block" on Kawananakoa's credit report.
The February 2002 fraud alert that Roberts placed said: "Fraudulent applications may be submitted in my name using correct personal information. Do not extend credit without first contacting me personally and verifying all application information" and she supplied her Chester phone number.
Wright said, "Amazingly, she not only accessed Abigail Kawananakoa's credit reports, but then she instructed them that Kawananakoa was an impostor who had been trying to steal her identity and that if they had any questions they should contact her."
Wright said that off and on over the last 10 years Roberts tried repeatedly to withdraw money out of Kawananakoa's Hawaii bank accounts, but failed.
Wright also said Roberts has tried to obtain information on several accounts and that in 2003 Bank of Hawaii even conducted a "sting" in which they videotaped Roberts. No charges were filed.
On Friday, Roberts was insistent to the Star-Bulletin that she is Kawananakoa and even produced an old picture from a book on the Campbell estate showing Abigail Campbell, wife of James Campbell, dressed in a formal black dress and straw hat, holding her infant son, Royalist, and surround by four girls dressed in white.
Roberts pointed to a pretty girl with long wavy hair of about 10 or 11 years old who stood behind Abigail Campbell in the picture and insisted it was she.
The girl, identified in the caption as Abigail Wahiikaahuula Kawananakoa, was born in 1882 and would be about 123 years old today.
Roberts insisted the girl is she and that former Campbell Estate Chief Executive Officer Oswald Stender gave her the picture.
"He about had a heart-attack when he saw me and the picture," she said.
Stender, a former Kamehameha Schools trustee who is currently a trustee at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said on Friday, "I have known this lady for about 20 years and she constantly claims she is an heir" to Campbell estate and Kamehameha Schools.
Stender said, "I feel sorry for her. She has a mental problem that misguides her."
In April 2004, Roberts made headlines here and in Philadelphia when the United States sued Roberts and her husband, James Roberts, a retired sandblaster, for filing a tax return using Kawananakoa's Social Security number.
The civil complaint said that due to the use of the Social Security number, the IRS "erroneously, mistakenly and without cause refunded to defendants Abigail Roberts and James K. Roberts the sum of $2,123,453," which were owed Kawananakoa for prepayment of taxes.
The complaint also said that in 1993, Roberts began filing tax returns for the Campbell Estate and obtained refunds of about $34,360 due to Kawananakoa in tax refund checks.
In 1999, Roberts was indicted for that refund under her former legal name, Charlotte Veronica Roberts, and charged with mail fraud, money laundering and making a false statement. She was found not guilty
In that 1999 case. Roberts' attorneys did not dispute that she had unlawfully used Kawana-nakoa's identity but alleged Roberts had "an irrational insistence upon an identity that is not her own."
In the 2004 civil case, Roberts said that as Kawananakoa, she is the "lawful heir of the Kamehameha Schools/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate and the James Campbell Estate."
In court papers, she also said she "has never falsely represented herself as anyone she is not, and has used and will continue to use her true and correct Social Security number."
According to court documents, Roberts was born Charlotte Veronica Kuheana and in 1966 she changed her name to Charlotte Veronica Kindike Kekaulike Kawananakoa Roberts.
Said Wright: "I'm sure we have not heard the last of Mrs. Roberts."
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