Indicted Sia
returns to Honolulu
after medical treatment

Money laundering, fraud
charges await the businessman

By Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin

Indicted businessman Sukamto Sia, who faces a May trial on federal money laundering and fraud charges, is back in Honolulu after spending several weeks in Los Angeles to undergo medical treatment for a lesion in his neck.

Sia returned this past weekend and is resuming his court-approved stay at a 28th-floor luxury condominium in the Waikiki Landmark, but may soon have to return to Los Angeles for more treatments, said Sia's attorney, William McCorriston.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Omer Poirier said the government is trying to find out more about Sia's medical condition, and why Sia must fly to California to have it treated. While in Los Angeles, Sia stayed in a nine-acre estate in Bel Air, according to federal court documents.

McCorriston would only say that Sia is being treated at the University of Southern California for a serious condition, and would not offer specifics.

Sia is awaiting a May 22 jury trial on nine counts of making false statements, money laundering and fraud connected with his filing for personal bankruptcy protection in November 1998. After Sia was arrested last year, his friends posted $1.5 million bail to allow Sia to stay at the Landmark -- a building developed by Sia in 1993 -- instead of the Miller Hale halfway house in Makiki.

McCorriston said he plans to defend Sia on every charge by arguing that Sia properly filled out his bankruptcy schedules and that federal prosecutors got their facts wrong.