Lead prosecutor defends actions in gambling case

The lead prosecutor in the gambling, money laundering and racketeering case involving so-called sweepstakes machines took the witness stand in state court Tuesday to defend himself against allegations that he and the former lead prosecutor knowingly presented false information to the grand jury to secure an indictment.

Jacob Delaplane is further accused of lying to a judge when the defendants found out about the testimony, so the judge would give the department a chance to secure a new indictment.

Delaplane said in a Circuit Court hearing that he did not knowingly lie about a grand jury witness’s qualifications. Circuit Judge Randal K.O. Lee is deciding whether to allow the state a chance to get a new indictment after dismissing the case.

On May 1 the grand jury indicted machine distributor Tracy T. Yoshi­mura and eight others with 414 counts of gambling, money laundering and racketeering in connection with machines that Hono­lulu police had seized from Oahu arcades in September 2012.

Lee dismissed the indictment last month at the state’s request after Dela­plane and the case’s former lead prosecutor said in sworn statements that they did not know Yoshi­mura was not the owner of the arcades.

Delaplane said he joined the Hono­lulu Department of the Prosecuting Attorney on April 16, just two weeks before the department took the case to an Oahu grand jury. Still, he said he was prepared for what former lead Prosecutor Katherine Kea­loha, wife of Hono­lulu Police Chief Louis Kea­loha, had assigned him to do: pre­sent the testimony from the state’s first witness, gambling expert John-Martin Meyer.

Just one day earlier, U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Koba­ya­shi had ruled in a civil case involving the nine defendants and the city that the machines are gambling devices prohibited under Hawaii law. In the hearings leading up to the ruling, Koba­ya­shi had allowed Meyer to testify as an expert on gaming but not on gambling machines.

When Meyer testified in front of the grand jury, he said a federal judge had qualified him as an expert. And under questioning from Dela­plane he answered questions about the sweepstakes machines.

Delaplane said he did not know that Meyer had testified in the federal civil case or that Koba­ya­shi had prevented Meyer from testifying as an expert on gambling machines.

"Either he is a pathological liar or he’s grossly incompetent," said Myles Brei­ner, Yoshi­mura’s lawyer.

Breiner said all of the testimony from witnesses following Meyer is tainted because the grand jurors were not told that Meyer is not an expert on gambling machines.

The defendants also say that Katherine Kea­loha presented false information when she presented testimony from a department investigator that Yoshi­mura owns the arcades from which the machines were seized.