Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

State employee who
cooperated in gambling
case gets fine, probation

---

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A state employee who pleaded guilty to conspiring to conduct an illegal gambling operation that prosecutors say operated out of a government office will not serve any prison time or home detention.

U.S. District Court Judge Alan C. Kay yesterday sentenced Alan Murakami, 47, to three years probation because of the "substantial assistance" he gave government prosecutors and for cooperating early on.

Murakami, a Maui employee of the state Department of Accounting and General Services, also was ordered to pay a $6,000 fine for failure to pay a wagering tax.

Murakami was the first of seven codefendants indicted in July 1999 to plead guilty, and agree to testify against the others. All six remaining codefendants subsequently pleaded guilty.

Defense attorney Reginald Minn said his client basically "took bets" for the operation and was getting paid a small flat rate for his services. And, unlike his codefendants, Murakami withdrew voluntarily from the illegal bookmaking activity after Maui police in 1994 first searched the Department of Accounting and General Services office.

"You were wise to withdraw from that gambling operation but not wise to enter into it in the first place," Kay told Murakami.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni requested that Murakami be given probation given his assistance to the government but felt some form of home detention was appropriate since he did commit the offenses that he pleaded guilty to.

Sunao Takamiya, former president of Maui Beverage & Supply, where part of the operation also was conducted, will be sentenced next month -- the last of the seven to be sentenced.