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Former Honolulu prosecutor sentenced to 13 years in prison after a judge said she used her husband’s post of police chief to accuse a relative of a crime he didn’t not committed in a failed Hawaii corruption case
HONOLULU – A US judge on Monday sentenced a former high-ranking Honolulu prosecutor to 13 years in prison, claiming she stole money from her own grandmother and used her husband’s position as a chief of police to accuse his uncle of a crime he had not committed – everything to maintain his lavish lifestyle.
Katherine and Louis Kealoha, now separated, were once a respected couple. Louis Kealoha, who has agreed to retire as part of the broad federal inquiry, is expected to be convicted later Monday in a separate hearing.
“This case has rocked the community in many ways,” said U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright, describing how Katherine Kealoha orchestrated a reverse mortgage scheme that forced her grandmother to sell her house, said accused his uncle of stealing the Kealoha mailbox. stole money from children whose trusts she controlled as a lawyer, cheated on her uncle about her savings, convinced her firefighter lover to lie about their affair and used her position as prosecutor to hijack an investigation into drugs from his doctor brother.
“Truth can be stranger than fiction,” the judge said.
His lawyer asked for an eight-year sentence, while prosecutors asked for 14 years.
A jury convicted the Kealohas last year of conspiring, along with two former officers who are expected to be sentenced on Tuesday.
To avoid a second trial, the Kealos later pleaded guilty to bank fraud, claiming to have provided false information to obtain loans.
Katherine Kealoha, 51, also pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge, saying she asked a police officer to falsify a police report she used to explain negative information on a credit report. She also pleaded guilty to a charge that involved protecting her brother from the drug investigation.
In a letter to the judge, she blamed a drug addiction for clouding her judgment.
“My client was on drugs, her mind was not clear and she did a lot of bad things,” her lawyer, Gary Singh, told the court.
Kealoha apologized to her family in court and asked for forgiveness. “To my uncle, especially,” she said. “I know he went through so much pain and so much suffering.”
Kealoha’s aunt Charlotte Puana Malott read a letter her mother, Florence Puana, wrote before she died at age 100 in February about her granddaughter’s “ruthless plan”.
“I was 90 in 2009 when I accepted a reverse mortgage on my house, not really understanding what it meant. It sounded complicated, but I trusted you Katherine, ”the letter said.
Kealoha came to Puana and her son Gerard Puana with an idea to take out a reverse mortgage on her grandmother’s house to help buy a condo her uncle wanted. Kealoha said she would consolidate her debts and promised her uncle and grandmother that she would pay off the loan.
She used the money to buy her uncle’s condo, but instead of repaying the loan, she spent the remaining money, on luxuries, including $ 26,000 for an induction banquet when her husband became chef de la police and $ 10,000 on payments from Mercedes-Benz and Maserati cars, the judge said.
“She perverted justice. And she did it for her own personal reasons, ”said Michael Wheat, a special federal prosecutor. “Facilitate a lifestyle and a facade and an image in this community.”
Louis Kealoha filed for divorce after being sentenced.
Monday’s sentencing hearings come after several postponements. Concerns about the spread of the coronavirus delayed them in March. A date of November 3 was changed after officials realized it was polling day.
“COVID kept us from that date for quite a while,” the judge said.
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