Firm fights One of the state's largest engineering firms is challenging a subpoena issued by the city prosecutor's office in a criminal investigation of Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign.
subpoena in
Harris probe
The challenge comes
to the prosecution’s request
for contract and donation recordsBy Rick Daysog
rdaysog@starbulletin.comR.M. Towill Corp. filed a motion in state Circuit Court yesterday seeking to quash a Feb. 4 subpoena seeking hundreds of pages of company records involving city contracts, political contributions, payments to subcontractors and gifts to city officials.
The company also asked the court to order the prosecutor's office to reveal the target of its inquiries and to issue a protective order on the company's records.
The subpoena -- which seeks records covering the 1996-2002 period -- is one of scores issued during the past year by the prosecutor's office, which is examining the award of nonbid city contracts to major donors to the Harris campaign.
Harry Yee, an attorney for R.M. Towill, said the prosecutor's subpoena is overly broad and may violate his client's constitutional rights because it does not specify whether R.M. Towill or its employees are a focus of the investigation.
"There is no way to know whether or not the recipient of the subpoena ... is the target or potential witness," Yee said.
"In this matter, (the) prosecutor has given no indication of the nature and or the context of his investigation, which frustrates any challenge or objection."
The prosecutor's office could not be reached for comment.
R.M. Towill is one of the city's largest outside consulting engineering firms.
Since 1996 the company has received about $17 million in nonbid city contracts, including the $2.9 million contract to manage the $300 million expansion of the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.
A computer-assisted study by the Star-Bulletin found that R.M. Towill employees and their relatives made more than $42,000 in campaign contributions to the Harris campaign during the past 10 years.
The company also contributed $25,000 in 1999 to the Environmental Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps organize the biennial Mayor's Asia-Pacific Environmental Summit.
Under state law a donor can give no more than $4,000 to a mayoral candidate during a four-year election cycle.
Officials with the Harris campaign and the city have denied any connection between political donations and contract awards.
R.M. Towill Corp.
City & County of Honolulu