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Selection of jury
opens today in
Ewa Villages
fraud case

The accused ringleader in
the reported $6 million swindle
faces 47 counts

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Seven of nine people charged in the fraud case involving the Ewa Villages relocation fund have reached plea agreements.

But Michael Kahapea, charged with 47 counts and allegedly the ringleader, is not one of them.

Jury selection began today in the Ewa Villages trial. That process is expected to last about a month, and the trial is estimated to run for two months.

Opening statements in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Reynaldo Graulty are scheduled for May 30.

Donald Wilkerson, Kahapea's attorney, said Friday he does not expect there to be a plea agreement reached with his client.

"Not right now, I don't see it," he said.

"We've talked about possible preliminary agreements but nothing formal," said Deputy Prosecutor Randal Lee. "Currently, there's nothing on the table. We're ready to proceed to trial on Monday, and we'll let the evidence speak for itself."

Both Wilkerson and Lee declined to divulge trial strategy.

But from previous comments and motions filed to date, Lee is expected to paint Kahapea as a man who calculated his risks and decided to seize an opportunity to take taxpayer money.

Lee also likely will bring up Kahapea's extravagant lifestyle and his gambling debts in Nevada resorts. Executives with at least four casinos are being asked to testify.

Kahapea, through 1997, was property management branch chief and overseer of the Ewa Villages relocation fund that helped move commercial entities out of the plantation neighborhood. Prosecutors say up to $6 million in funds was paid to moving companies, some of them bogus, for jobs either not done or done at exorbitant cost.

Wilkerson likely will focus much of his case on Kahapea's initial assertions that it was higher-ups who directed him toward misuse of the funds and illegal activity.

Kahapea, before surrendering to sheriffs, told reporters that supervisors he did not identify ordered him to use the relocation money to rehabilitate old homes and to hire help to clean makeshift dump sites.

Seven others charged in the case reached plea agreements with the state and are helping in the case against Kahapea. Two other defendants have died.

One other defendant, Stephen Swift, is charged with one count of second-degree theft and will stand trial with Kahapea.