Katherine Kealoha said in state court Wednesday that the $23,976 she spent from a joint bank account she shared with her grandmother on the January 2010 inauguration breakfast for her husband, Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, was money that was owed to her.

She said her husband never asked her how much the breakfast cost because she handles all of the family’s finances.

"My husband doesn’t even have a checkbook," she said.

Kealoha has been on the witness stand since Tuesday to defend herself against a civil lawsuit filed by her 95-year-old grandmother, Florence Puana, and uncle, Gerard Puana.

Florence Puana claims Kealoha stole $148,000 from a reverse mortgage her granddaughter arranged on Puana’s Maunalani Heights home. The $148,000 was in the joint bank account.

Gerard Puana claims Kealoha failed to return $40,000 in cash he gave her to put into an investment hui plus another $30,000 in cash he claims he gave his niece for safekeeping.

Kealoha said $1,223 she paid from the joint account to a Maserati agent was also money owed to her. She traded in the Mercedes for a Maserati, but had to pay it off first.

When Gerald Kurashima, the Puanas’ lawyer, asked Kealoha why she has a Maserati, she said, "I have a good job and I make good money."

Kealoha is a deputy city prosecutor in charge of the career criminal unit.

She said she spent $2,161 from the joint account for Elton John concert tickets for her uncle Gerard. She said she did attend the concert but with tickets she purchased using money from her own personal account.

She remembered some of the expenditures from the joint account made from October 2009 to April 2010. Other expenditures Kealoha said she is not able to remember without receipts and other documents she compiled for the case.

Kealoha is testifying as a witness for the plaintiffs and did not have access to the receipts on the witness stand. She will have the documents when she testifies as her own witness.

She testified that she helped her grandmother obtain money from a reverse mortgage on the grandmother’s Maunalani Heights home because her grandmother and uncle asked her for help. She said her grandmother wanted to help her uncle purchase a condominium.

The $148,000 was what was left from the reverse mortgage after the condominium purchase.

Kealoha said the $26,700 she withdrew from the account following the condominium purchase was reimbursement for the down payment she made using her own money and for the rent she paid on the unit so her uncle could occupy the Salt Lake condominium before the purchase was finalized. She also said she used her own money to pay one or two months of maintenance fees.

After arranging for direct payments from the bank, Kealoha said, the maintenance fees then came from the joint account. She said she also paid for the unit’s furniture from the joint account.

Kealoha said she filed a tax modification affidavit that her grandmother signed in 2010 attesting that Puana reimbursed her granddaughter $83,600 so that Kealoha wouldn’t get taxed twice for the money.