False-name contribution
complaint is filed
City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle has issued a criminal complaint against a Kaneohe woman linked to a city contractor that allegedly funneled more than $29,000 to Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris' 2000 campaign.
In court papers filed in state District Court, prosecutors charged that Leona Nishimura made political contributions to the Harris campaign under a false name.
Nishimura is an employee of First Hawaiian Bank but is tied to the local engineering firm of Wilson Okamoto & Associates Inc., a target of investigations by the prosecutor's office and the state Campaign Spending Commission.
Nishimura's attorney Miles Furutani declined comment, saying he has not seen the complaint. Carlisle's office also had no comment.
Making a false-name contribution is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,000.
According to state campaign spending records, Nishimura gave the Harris campaign $1,000 in December 1999 and another $1,000 in September 2000.
Harris' campaign records listed Nishimura as an administrative worker and a teller at First Hawaiian Bank.
People familiar with the investigations by the prosecutor's office and the commission said Nishimura is a friend of Lori Okamoto, wife of the engineering firm's president, Gary Okamoto.
Donors linked to the Wilson Okamoto firm have given $29,500 to the Harris campaign since 1996, according to people familiar with the commission's investigation.
Friends and relatives of the firm's officers have also funneled more than $23,000 to former Gov. Ben Cayetano's campaign during the past six years, sources said.
According to city records, the Wilson Okamoto firm has received more than $17 million in nonbid design and consulting work from the city since 1994.
Harris' attorneys have said there is no link between political donations and the awarding of city contracts.
Under state law an individual or business can give no more than $4,000 to a mayoral candidate during a four-year election cycle. Donors also are barred from giving money under false names.
The criminal complaint against Nishimura comes less than two weeks after prosecutors issued a similar complaint against the head of a local land surveying company, Alden Kajioka, of Controlpoint Surveying Inc.
During the past several months, Honolulu police, working with the prosecutor's office, have arrested about a dozen local engineering and architecture executives on suspicion of similar charges.
The Campaign Spending Commission's two-year civil investigation into the Harris campaign and its donors has netted fines totaling more than $500,000 from more than 60 city and state contractors.
Campaign Spending Commission
