KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Peter Char had no comment yesterday after his grand jury appearance.
Grand jury meeting A key fund-raiser for Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris' political campaign appeared yesterday before an Oahu grand jury investigating the awarding of city contracts to large political donors.
short-lived for
Harris official
Peter Char's attorney says little about
the 5-minute appearanceBy Rick Daysog
rdaysog@starbulletin.comBut Peter Char, assistant treasurer of the Harris campaign, left the courthouse without comment after meeting with the grand jury for about five minutes.
William McCorriston, Char's attorney, would not say whether Char invoked his right against self-incrimination or whether his client answered questions about his role in the Harris campaign.
But McCorriston said his client cooperated with the grand jury proceedings.
Char, 59, is the highest-ranking Harris campaign official to go before the panel, which has been investigating the Harris campaign since September. He also was the top fund-raiser for Harris' gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns.
Char's appearance came after a state judge upheld a grand jury subpoena for his testimony.
McCorriston said he did not file a formal motion to quash the subpoena, but said he asked a judge to rule that Char's testimony was unnecessary since the Harris campaign had handed over pertinent records.
Deputy Prosecutor Randal Lee declined comment.
Char's brief appearance provided an anticlimax to yesterday's grand jury session. Attorney Rick Tsujimura, co-chairman of Harris' campaign, was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, but he was out of town on a prearranged business trip.
Meanwhile, veteran pollster Don Clegg testified before the grand jury about polling conducted by the Harris campaign.
Clegg said prosecutors asked him why the Harris campaign used two polling firms during the 1996 and 2000 elections and not one. Besides Clegg, the Harris campaign has employed Campaign Service Inc. to conduct political polls. Campaign Service Inc. is headed by Harry Mattson, a political supporter of Harris and former Gov. John Waihee.
Prosecutors are also investigating more than $300,000 in payments from Mattson's company to a former Maui beauty queen, Lisa-Katharine Otsuka.
More than $75,000 of Campaign Service's payments to Otsuka originated from the Harris campaign, according to people familiar with the prosecutor's investigation.
Otsuka has been indicted for second-degree theft and forgery in two unrelated cases. She also was arrested in August in a Waikiki hotel on suspicion of promoting prostitution.
Otsuka has pleaded not guilty in one of the theft cases.
Clegg said he did not know why the Harris campaign used two pollsters, other than to say that politicians are "very skittish people who like a second opinion."
"I was aware Harry was doing polling," said Clegg, who worked as a volunteer for the Harris campaign and was not paid. "We did not compare notes."
The grand jury also questioned Honolulu police officer Ernest Chang, who is a friend of Otsuka. During Otsuka's Waikiki arrest, police officers found ammunition that allegedly belonged to Chang in Otsuka's hotel room.
City & County of Honolulu
