A former employee of a Native Hawaiian organization that provides security guards at Pearl Harbor and other Navy facilities on Oahu is going to prison for nearly two years for putting phantom employees on the payroll and pocketing their salaries.
A federal judge Thursday sentenced Corinne Haunani Cabral to 21 months in prison for wire and mail fraud.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright also ordered Cabral, 57, of Kaneohe, to repay the Hana Group the $223,572 she stole from the company from June 2008 to last July.
Michael Rawlins, project manager of the Hana Group’s security contract, said the company is going to need that money because the contract expires at the end of September, forcing the company to lay off 140-160 security guards.
As a Native Hawaiian organization, the Hana Group is eligible for sole-source, set-aside government contracts. It is also a nonprofit organization whose earnings benefit the Hawaiian community, Rawlins said.
Cabral pleaded guilty in February to keeping two former employees on the payroll after they had already left the company and putting the names of two friends on the payroll even though they didn’t do any work for the Hana Group. She had their paychecks deposited into bank accounts under her name, her 15-year-old granddaughter’s name and that of a friend, all of which she controlled.
Rawlins said the company discovered the scheme when he got a pay stub for an unknown employee after Cabral had left the company. He said he then received a letter from the unknown worker asking the company to deposit directly into his bank a one-time, nonpayroll settlement check from the Navy because he was incarcerated and couldn’t cash it.
Cabral has a previous conviction in state court for collecting welfare benefits from January 1981 to January 1984 even though she was either employed during that period or collecting unemployment payments. She pleaded guilty in April 1985 to theft and lying on welfare applications and eligibility reports. A state judge sentenced her to probation and ordered her to pay back the $19,141 she stole and to perform 750 hours of community service.
