By Rob Shikina
rshikina@staradvertiser.com
A state judge expressed concern Wednesday about the handling of a large gambling case by the prosecutor’s office that resulted in charges against nine people in connection with sweepstakes gaming machines.
Circuit Judge Randal Lee also denied city Deputy Prosecutor Jake Delaplane’s request for more time to respond to motions alleging prosecutorial misconduct and seeking the case to be dismissed.
Delaplane said he wanted to respond to each of the issues raised by the defense.
Lee responded: “I’m hearing a lot of fluff.”
“Given the magnitude and importance of this particular case, I find it highly disturbing that a hundred percent of your time is not dedicated on this case,” Lee told Delaplane. “I’m troubled by that.”
He added, “It’s incumbent on the attorneys to be prepared. … I just can’t gather that it’s so difficult.”
Delaplane said he recently took the lead in the case after Katherine Kealoha, the head of the prosecutor’s Career Criminal Division, went on indefinite personal leave in mid-September and is no longer assigned to the case.
Lead defense attorney Myles Breiner argued that the prosecutor’s office was trying to buy time to fix their indictment before the court has an opportunity to throw the case out.
Defense attorneys submitted three motions to dismiss the case Sept. 26, arguing that prosecutors, at a grand jury hearing, relied on excessive use of hearsay, insufficient evidence and misleading testimony to obtain an indictment. The defense also claims the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury.
The motions to dismiss arose from defense attorneys looking at about 250 pages of grand jury transcripts. The grand jury’s 414-count indictment charges the nine people with a variety of crimes, including gambling, racketeering, and money laundering. The indicted are: Tracy Yoshimura, Eugene Simeona, Michael Miller Jr., Michael Madali Jr., Clayton Simeona, Desiree Haina, Quentin Canencia, Gary Danley and Alexander Alejandro.
The May 1 state indictment came one day after a federal judge ruled the gaming machines at the center of the case, called Products Direct Sweepstakes, are illegal in Hawaii. The federal case was an attempt to force police and the prosecutor’s office to return the seized gaming machines. All of the plaintiffs in the federal case were indicted by the grand jury. An appeal is pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Breiner, who is representing Yoshimura, who was a distributor of the sweepstakes machines, said there are substantial concerns about the grand jury’s indictment, including that Kealoha allowed false information to be presented before the grand jury.
Kealoha, who is the wife of Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, led the grand jury hearing with Delaplane.
During the hearing, an investigator said Yoshimura was the owner of several establishments where the gaming devices were seized, despite state records showing otherwise.
Also, Kealoha didn’t correct an investigator who testified that Yoshimura was the owner of New World Group, which she should have known was false, the court documents said.
In April 2013, the prosecutor’s office seized 12 sweepstakes machines from New World Group and served a receipt on its owner, Soon J. Yun, court documents said.
Later in 2013, when Yun sued the city to try to retrieve her seized gaming machines, Kealoha represented the prosecutor’s office in the case.
The state also presented John-Martin Meyer as an expert on the sweepstakes machines before the grand jury, despite a judge ruling in the federal lawsuit that Meyer did not qualify as an expert on the machines.
Kealoha also had an investigator imply that it didn’t matter that the Honolulu Liquor Commission had approved the gaming machines because the businesses where they were seized did not serve liquor.
A hearing on the motions to dismiss the case is scheduled for Tuesday.
