Four indicted in
West Loch scam as
city probe widens

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

The probe into the Ewa Villages relocation scam continues to widen with the latest indictments against four men, as prosecutors find more evidence of $8 million total pilfered from the city.

Former city housing official Michael Kahapea, Keith Ringler, Harry Akana and Clayton Haumea were indicted yesterday for allegedly siphoning $600,000 from the city for work clearing West Loch Estates for development, according to city prosecutors.

"It's a sad commentary: the fraud continues," said Deputy Prosecutor Randy Lee . "It's wider spread than I thought. There's something suspect about everything Michael Kahapea touched."

The men were charged with seven counts of first-degree theft, racketeering and money-laundering.

So far more than 20 people have been arrested in connection with Ewa Villages, Middle Street and West Loch projects defrauding the city of $8 million, Lee said.

As in the Ewa Villages revitalization project, billings for inflated or fabricated moving costs involving West Loch Estates were submitted to the city.

Kahapea, a fired city housing official, remains the central figure after being indicted for the third time, Lee said.

Currently on supervised release, Kahapea is now wanted on a bench warrant with bail set at $125,000, Lee said.

Kahapea and Ringler, a part-time Colorado resident, were indicted with two counts of racketeering for not doing all the work in relocating horse ranches and farms at West Loch to clear the way for the city to develop West Loch Estates.

Ringler was the owner of Reliable Trucking and Kar Fencing, which submitted some of the false bids to the city for contracts with Kahapea's help, Lee said. "The business existed in name only. No one has seen any work done."

The two were previously indicted for an alleged scam in relocating businesses on Middle Street to make way for TheBus headquarters in the early 1990s.

Akana and Haumea were tenants in West Loch and associates of Kahapea's, and Kahapea used them to submit some false bids, Lee said. They also did some of the moves from West Loch and submitted bills.

"The money they got, they cashed it," Lee said. "We can't trace it, but we have some financial evidence that the money went back to Michael Kahapea."

The West Loch fraud began in 1988, according to prosecutors.

"Kahapea found a formula that worked and continued it wherever he went," said Jim Fulton, the prosecutor office's spokesman.