Kona school officer stole $2.5M, owns gold mine, prosecutor says

The chief financial officer of Youth With a Mission’s University of the Nations in Kona stole $2.5 million from the international Christian school, owns a gold mine in Africa and kept loose diamonds in a safe deposit box, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael David Nammar also said the government has recovered only $150,000 and has been unable to track down the rest of the money Pablo M. Rivera stole. He told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin S.C. Chang that if given the opportunity, Rivera could use money he’s hidden to flee the country.

Chang had ordered Rivera released on $100,000 unsecured signature bond into a halfway house earlier this month pending further prosecution. On Tuesday, Rivera asked Chang to release him from the halfway house so he can stay with relatives in Connecticut. Chang denied the request.

Defense lawyer Lynn Panagakos disputed the government’s claim that Rivera stole $2.5 million. She said Rivera disclosed all of his liquid assets in a Feb. 10 meeting with the FBI, including two bank accounts containing $52,119, the diamonds, the gold mine and $70,000 to $80,000 worth of mining equipment.

Panagakos also said Rivera, who lives in Colorado, came to Hawaii in January to tell the school’s board what he had done.

Nammar said Rivera lied to the board that he stole $500,000 because his wife has cancer, and tried to convince the board members not to report the theft to authorities. He said Rivera did not tell the FBI about $170,000 he had wired to a foreign bank account, $315,000 to various trading accounts, and that $20,000 in his retirement account is stolen money. He also said Rivera is fluent in Spanish, traveled to Mexico seven or eight times since 2008 and traveled to Africa four times.

Panagakos told Chang that Rivera’s wife has Lyme disease, not cancer, and suffers from kidney problems.

Rivera is charged with wire fraud. The FBI says Rivera stole money from the University of the Nations beginning around September 2014 up until last month by altering invoices from a general building contractor hired to do construction and maintenance on the Kailua-Kona campus.

The FBI says Rivera inflated the cost of material and labor, then pocketed the difference by writing checks to himself from the contractor’s account. The contractor told the FBI that he put Rivera’s name on the company’s account because Rivera told him it was necessary to comply with Hawaii regulations.