A member of the Hawaii Paroling Authority lectured convicted city housing official Michael Kahapea yesterday, who apologized for his role in the Ewa Villages scandal but blamed his addiction to gambling. Parole board scolds
city’s unrivaled crookThe authority will set the
minimum term for Michael
Kahapea for a $5.8 million scamBy Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com"The misuse of trust says a lot more than just you were an addict," board member Lani Rae Garcia admonished Kahapea. "Bottom line: You wanted to use city money for your own use."
The board is expected to issue a decision within a month about how much time Kahapea must serve before he is eligible for parole. The state is asking that Kahapea serve the maximum 50 years in prison.
In October 2000, Kahapea, 59, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on each of five counts of first-degree theft for stealing close to $5.8 million from the city's Ewa Villages relocation project -- the biggest theft in the city's history. Circuit Judge Reynaldo Graulty had ordered Kahapea to serve the 10-year terms consecutively for a total of 50 years.
That the judge had ordered consecutive sentences "speaks volumes" of the seriousness of his actions, Garcia said.
She said the board was treating Kahapea's case differently from other white-collar crime cases because of the extent to which he abused the position of trust he held. "We simply cannot condone these types of behavior in high positions of trust in city or state government," Garcia said.
Kahapea, who also pleaded guilty to three other counts of first-degree theft for stealing from the West Loch and Middle Street projects and from coin-operated laundry machines at two city housing projects, had also been sentenced earlier to 10 years in prison, to be served at the same time with his term in the Ewa Villages scam.
Kahapea, a one-time city Employee of the Year who was in charge of the city's relocation projects, said: "I'm sorry for what's happened, what this has caused and what the results are."
He talked via a videoconference from Halawa Correctional Facility with his attorney, Reginald Minn, at his side.
He said that if released, he needed treatment to deal with his addiction.
"These bad choices I made are not the sum total of my life," he said, adding that he wanted an opportunity to make restitution but can only do so if he is released.
Minn described Kahapea as a productive, law-abiding citizen "who kind of got off track" because of his gambling problems.
However, large-scale theft such as the one Kahapea was accused of could not have been carried out without the complicity of others, Minn argued. "Clearly, others assisted and benefited on a large scale."
But Deputy Prosecutor Randal Lee said Kahapea, a trusted city employee whose knowledge of relocations made him the man the city relied on and whose expertise they did not question, has shown no remorse for his actions.
Kahapea set up a scheme that took advantage of his friends, family and associates not out of need, but for personal gain, Lee said. As part of the scheme, Kahapea set up bogus moving companies owned by friends and family, and falsified claim forms to move tenants out of Ewa Villages and made it appear that moves had been completed when they had not.
The city paid nearly $5.8 million to these companies -- a portion of which was kicked back to Kahapea -- for moving work that was never done or was performed at inflated prices, according to prosecutors.
Lee said Kahapea squandered the money on gambling trips to Las Vegas and frequenting local hostess bars.
Lee also noted Kahapea's conduct was not just a one-time deal, but occurred over the course of many years.