Isle UPW director
faces more charges

His daughter also is charged
with money laundering and fraud

---

By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com

The state director of the United Public Workers, who faces trial in January on charges of diverting $200,000 from union health plans to companies owned by his daughter, now faces charges he received $117,000 in kickbacks.

A federal grand jury indicted Gary Rodrigues yesterday with soliciting and receiving kickbacks from 1993 to 1998 for selecting the insurance company that would provide policies for the union's life insurance plan.

Acceptance of kickbacks is punishable by three years in prison.

Rodrigues and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.

A federal grand jury initially charged Rodrigues in March with defrauding UPW members by negotiating contracts in which members paid inflated fees for dental and health care benefits to Hawaii Dental Service and Pacific Group Medical Association.

Part of the member fees included a consulting fee that was paid to companies owned by his daughter, Robin Haunani Rodrigues Sabatini, when she in fact did not do any consulting work, the indictment alleged.

The payments were never disclosed to the membership or the executive board, the indictment said.

Sabatini was charged along with Rodrigues for receiving payments between March 1996 to December 1998 and laundering the money.

Under the new indictment, both face 59 additional counts of mail fraud, embezzlement and money laundering involving fees paid to Sabatini during 1999 and 2000.

Payments were made to one of her companies, Four Winds RSK Inc., before it even existed, the indictment said.

After the Honolulu Star-Bulletin published a story in January 1998 that PGMA had paid consultant fees to Sabatini's company, she allegedly transferred all its assets to a company she incorporated under her married name called Alulii Inc.

HDS also paid consulting fees to a now-deceased individual to whom Rodrigues owed money.

Rodrigues and Sabatini pleaded not guilty to the first indictment. Their trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 23.