A former grand jury witness told a federal judge Friday that Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha told him what lies to tell the panel, which had been investigating her.
Then, hours after he testified, she had him sign documents containing false information to back up the lies, he said.
“I signed everything (Kealoha) put in front of me,” including blank pieces of paper that were later filled in, Ransen Taito told U.S. District Chief Judge J. Michael Seabright.
Taito, 26, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring with Kealoha to obstruct an FBI investigation and to corruptly impede the related grand jury proceeding. He faces a maximum five-year prison term at sentencing in July.
His lawyer, Michael Green, said Taito’s crime “goes to the very heart of our system of justice,” but he hopes Seabright recognizes how Taito and his younger sister, who he said also lied to the grand jury, got into the situation.
“They are named by the government as victims. They start off as children, and they become victims as they get older,” he said.
State Circuit Judge Colleen Hirai appointed Kealoha in April 2004 as guardian of approximately $167,000 that was awarded to Taito and his sister, who at the time were 12 and 10 years old, respectively, in a medical settlement over a misdiagnosis involving their father.
Pakini Taito died in July 2004.
At the time of the appointment, Kealoha was a lawyer in private practice.
When Ransen Taito and his sister turned 18, Kealoha was required to submit to the court a final accounting of the money to show that they had received all of it.
The government says that instead of safeguarding the money, she spent it on personal expenses for herself and her husband, former
Honolulu police Chief Louis Kealoha. In April 2011, after Taito turned 18 and Kealoha had returned to work at the Honolulu prosecutor’s office, the government says Kealoha submitted a fake bank statement and persuaded Taito to sign a false statement indicating he had received all of his money.
The medical settlement money came up again in 2016, when the FBI was investigating Kealoha and a federal grand jury took over the case.
Taito said Kealoha called him and told him that the FBI was looking for him. He said he and his mother had previously met with Kealoha, who told them that they didn’t have to say anything. He also said Kealoha repeated what she had told him in 2011 if he told the truth about what happened to his money: “that my mom could lose her job and go back to jail,” he said.
Green said Kealoha convinced Taito and his sister that she had given their money to their mother. He said Kealoha also had Taito meet her at the prosecutor’s office to sign false documents there.
He said Taito and his sister told the grand jury that they had received all of their medical settlement money, even though they knew they didn’t. The government says Kealoha arranged to have a lawyer represent the Taitos in front of the grand jury and present some of the fake documents she had drawn up.
Green said Taito and his sister were already torn up about lying to the federal grand jury. And when they learned from their mother that she did not get their money, they decided to come forward.
Taito pleaded guilty Friday as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors. The deal requires him to cooperate with the government.
Green said Taito did not ask for any promises from the government in exchange for his guilty plea and cooperation. He said Taito’s sister is not facing charges even though she lied to the grand jury. Still, he said, both are committed to testifying at whatever proceeding the government asks them to.
Kealoha and her husband were indicted in October with bank fraud for claiming the Taitos’ medical settlement money as their own on loan and mortgage applications. They and four former members of the Honolulu Police Department’s elite Criminal Intelligence Unit were also indicted for conspiracy, obstructing justice and lying to investigators in connection with an alleged frame-up of Katherine Kealoha’s uncle, with whom she was involved in a bitter money dispute.
Kealoha’s court-appointed criminal defense lawyer, Cynthia Kagiwada, was in U.S. District Court on Friday when Taito pleaded guilty. She left before the end of the hearing and did not respond to requests for comment.
