Attorney accused
of Iniki fraud indicted
An Oahu grand jury has returned a 14-count indictment against a Honolulu attorney accused of cheating the state out of more than $12 million in insurance claims stemming from Hurricane Iniki.
The indictment returned Wednesday charged Jerrold Chun, 55, with three counts of first-degree theft, 10 counts of money laundering and one count of unlawful ownership or operation of business. Each is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Chun was hired by the state to handle claims from the 1992 storm after the liquidation of two insurance companies: Hawaiian Underwriters Insurance Co. and United National Insurance Co., which are now known as HUI/UNICO in Liquidation Inc.
Attorney General Mark Bennett said yesterday that Chun is accused of diverting substantial amounts of money on three occasions in June and July from HUI/UNICO to himself.
The attorney general's office opened a criminal investigation of the HUI/UNICO liquidation after an internal investigation by state Insurance Commissioner J.P. Schmidt found Chun negotiated substantially lower payouts for three claims and then kept the difference from the original claim amounts.
