Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Witness: Kahapea
was not told
to divert funds

A former city official says there
was no order to use money
to clear toxic waste

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Former city Housing Director Bob Agres told a Circuit Court jury he did not order Michael Kahapea to divert relocation funds to clean up toxic waste at Ewa Villages.

Kahapea, fired in 1997 from his job as city relocations chief, is accused of masterminding a scheme that stole $5.6 million from a fund designed to move commercial firms from Ewa Villages.

Agres acknowledged that as deputy housing director in 1996, he and then-Housing Director Roland Libby went on a field trip to Ewa Villages with Kahapea and saw a number of toxic substances still on the project site. But he said at no time was he aware of, nor did he instruct, Kahapea to falsify relocation documents to use funding for removal of toxic substances. That is what the defendant and his attorney Donald Wilkerson have alleged.

Agres, who is no longer employed by the city, also testified that it was fired housing officer Norman Tam who drafted a June 1997 letter to Councilman Duke Bainum that gave false information about the relocations. The letter, which Harris officials said helped lead to Tam's termination, was signed by then-Housing Director Agres, former Budget Director Malcolm Tom and then-Deputy Managing Director Ben Lee.

Agres said he had only been housing director for several months when Bainum made inquiries about Ewa Villages relocations.

Agres said the only change he made to Tam's draft of the letter was to include a sentence explaining that "the names of commercial entities are coded and is (sic) available on a "need to know' basis."

Bainum testified on Tuesday that he believed that meant the names of the companies being moved weren't available to him and said he was stunned that an elected official would get such a response from the city. But Agres said yesterday: "The intent of that phrase is not as ominous as that. It is just one of 'If you want the information, we will provide it to your staff later on.' "

Agres said that his intent was to be sensitive to the privacy rights of Ewa Villages' commercial tenants.

Bainum, in response to Agres' testimony, said last night in a telephone interview: "He knew what I was asking for. He just didn't want to give it to me."

Earlier yesterday in court, an official for the Stardust Hotel and Casino testified that its records show Kahapea deposited $11.9 million into its slot machines October 1993 to June 1997. He won back $9.2 million and received another $2 million in jackpots and bonuses, according to Stardust collections manager Chris Crain. Kahapea was making $39,000 annually at the time of his firing.