Offices raided in
campaign probe

Police confiscate computers
and files from a training firm

Honolulu police raided the downtown office of a local computer-training company as part of the city prosecutor's investigation into alleged rigging of city contracts.

Police officers served a search warrant on TeraBiz Training Center of the Pacific on Bethel Street on Tuesday.

Officers carted away several TeraBiz computers and about a dozen boxes of financial documents, people familiar with the investigation said.

Gregg Yamanaka, TeraBiz's chief learning officer, said he did not know what investigators were looking for, but said that he believes the search was part of Prosecutor Peter Carlisle's probe into the city's Oahu Workforce Investment Board.

Last month, Honolulu police raided the Kakaako offices of the Workforce Investment Board and seized the computers of the agency's executive director, Christine McColgan.

People familiar with the probe said investigators are looking at the awarding of agency contracts and travel expenses by staffers. The inquiry stems from the prosecutor's investigation into illegal campaign contributions to the Harris campaign and the awarding of city contracts.

City records show that the Department of Community Services approved about $200,000 in payments to TeraBiz in 1999. McGolgan's son, Keola, is employed by TeraBiz as a technical support staffer.

Yamanaka said there is nothing improper about his company's work for the city, which has dwindled during recent years due to funding cutbacks. He defended the hiring of Keola McColgan last December, saying he was the only qualified applicant.

Yamanaka added that TeraBiz has never given a political contribution.

"As far as I know, there wasn't anything out of the normal course of business," Yamanaka said.

McColgan did not return a call to her office, and prosecutors had no comment.

The Oahu Workforce Investment Board, which is partly funded by federal money, provides job placement and job training for local employers and job hunters.

The agency is attached to the Department of Community Services, whose former director, Michael Amii, pleaded no contest to a third-degree theft charge in 2003 for ordering a city staffer to work on the Harris campaign.