5 at engineering firm
fined over donations
The employees either gave too much to
Mayor Harris or gave it under false names
A state judge ordered the head of a local engineering firm to pay a $2,000 fine for making illegal political contributions to Mayor Jeremy Harris' campaign.
District Judge Lono Lee also fined an employee of the same firm $1,000 and ordered three additional people linked to the firm to pay $500 each.
In a hearing in Honolulu District Court yesterday, Jeffrey Wong, president of NTW Associates Inc., pleaded no contest to charges of making an excessive political contribution to the Harris campaign and to making a political donation under a false name.
NTW employee Linton Lee, his brothers Lester and Lambert Lee, and a friend, Helen June, also pleaded no contest to making a false-name political donation.
All five were granted deferrals, which give them the opportunity to have their criminal cases dismissed if they stay out of trouble.
Deputy Prosecutor Randal Lee said all five tried to disguise their donations and lied to investigators when asked whether NTW illegally reimbursed them for the donations.
David Hayakawa, an attorney for Wong and the Lees, said his clients were compelled to make the political contributions at the request of the R.M. Towill Corp. engineering firm. NTW is a subcontractor for R.M. Towill, whose former chairman and president earlier pleaded no contest to giving illegal political donations to the Harris campaign.
Hayakawa said Wong's predecessor at NTW established the practice of making political donations in the names of employees and friends.
Hayakawa acknowledged that his clients were not initially forthcoming to investigators on the advice of their former attorney, whom he did not name. But he said that they have since cooperated.
"None of them in their wildest dreams believed that they would get into trouble for this," Hayakawa said.
Under state law, donors are prohibited from making political donations in the names of others.
They also are barred from giving more than $4,000 for a mayoral race and $6,000 for a gubernatorial race during a four-year election cycle.