Ads falsely cast Lindsey
as candidate for mayorThe ad campaign is being run
without her OK, her lawyer says
Ousted Kamehameha Schools trustee Lokelani Lindsey, who was recently released from federal prison, is not running for Honolulu mayor despite ads appearing in today's paper that urge her to run, said her attorney Friday.
"No one has contacted my client and she has not given authorization to anyone to promote her running for mayor," said Honolulu attorney William Harrison .
"She doesn't know anything about this," he said.
Lindsey was released from a mainland prison April 1 after serving six months for bankruptcy fraud and money laundering .
Lindsey, 65, did not return calls to her hotel room in Las Vegas on Friday. She is on supervised release and is still caring for her ailing husband.
An ad, which asks for people to draft Lindsey as a candidate for mayor, is running in the print edition of today's Star-Bulletin on Page E14.
Earlier this month, a full-page ad appeared in the Fil-Am Courier, a Filipino newspaper, that read: "Elect! Lokelani Lindsey mayor of Honolulu."
The ad included a picture of Lindsey and a full reprint of an affidavit she filed in U.S. District Court dated July 30, 2003, that was placed in the court's overnight box during her bankruptcy fraud case.
In the affidavit, Lindsey portrays herself as a victim who was punished in the judicial system for having "insider knowledge" of corruption at Bishop Estate (now known as Kamehameha Schools), of "corrupt attempts to seize control" of the estate, "grand jury tampering" and "acts of abuse of Hawaiians."
The Fil-Am ad states it is "paid for by Friends of Lokelani Lindsey for Mayor, Christian Filipino Victims Foundation," which has a Web site at www.victimsgroup.com.
Harrison said Lindsey is not a member of the group and was not aware of the group's existence until he asked her about the ad.
Harrison said he suspected that Richard Basuel, who is also featured in the ad and was recently convicted of fraud, was behind the ads but without Lindsey's consent. Harrison declined to comment on Basuel or his motive.
Basuel did not return repeated calls for comment.
As a felon who has not completed her sentence, Lindsey is not eligible to run for state office, according to the state Office of Elections.
She must also be a registered voter of the county in which she plans to run. The election office said Lindsey was last registered to vote in Maui county.
Lindsey, a former gym teacher and hula dancer, rose through the ranks of the Department of Education on Maui and in Democratic political circles before gaining a seat as trustee. Critics have said that her close management of the schools stoked community unhappiness with the board, investigations of its alleged mismanagement and fueled a scandal that dogged the estate during the mid- to late 1990s.
Lindsey and three others were ousted from their $1 million-a-year jobs as trustees May 1999 after separate state and federal investigations into the alleged mismanagement of the estate's finances and its schools. A fifth trustee, Oswald Stender, resigned from his job at the same time, but not before he fought a lawsuit with trustee Gerard Jervis to oust Lindsey.
In the ad, Basuel states that he and Lindsey "both are political prisoners." He paid cash for the Fil-Am and Star-Bulletin ads.
Campaign Spending Commission Executive Director Robert Watada said Basuel has not registered with the commission. He noted that once someone has raised or spent $100 or more in pursuit of a candidacy and not filed with his office within 10 days, they are in violation of state campaign spending laws.
In February, a state Circuit Court jury convicted Basuel, the owner of a local tax preparation company called RB Tax Service, on 23 tax fraud counts, including attempting to evade taxes and first-degree theft.
Basuel, who remains free on bail, is scheduled to be sentenced May 12. He faces 10 years in prison from his preparation of tax returns for five people during tax years 2000 and 2001.