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A state judge is ordering Kamehameha Schools to turn over evidence the educational trust gathered in its own investigation of a former teacher accused of secretly recording students in the shower.
Kamehameha Schools turned over some evidence that Honolulu police and an Oahu grand jury used to charge former debate team coach and Kapalama campus speech teacher Gabriel Alisna in 2013 with five counts of violating the privacy of three students and two counts of fondling one of them. But Circuit Judge Rom Trader described that material as "scant" compared with all of the evidence trust officials gathered before referring the case to police.
It is the 39-year-old Alisna, not the state, who is asking for the evidence that was withheld from police.
Trader said in a hearing last month that the evidence is necessary for Alisna to get a fair trial. He told the parties he will put off enforcing his order until April 17 to give Kamehameha Schools time to appeal, if it so chooses.
Kamehameha Schools spokesman Kekoa Paulsen said the trust’s lawyers are evaluating options for the organization’s next step.
Alisna’s trial had been scheduled to begin April 13. The parties have agreed to move it to August.
This is not the first time Trader has ordered Kamehameha Schools to turn over its investigation material.
Alisna’s lawyer Keith Shigetomi asked for the material in a court-ordered subpoena last May. He also asked for all correspondence pertaining to Alisna’s rental agreement with Kamehameha Schools for his faculty housing apartment and for the three students’ school records.
Alisna allegedly recorded the students using the shower in his apartment while they were there preparing for debate competitions.
The trust refused to comply with the subpoena and asked Trader to void it. It claims that school officials conducted the internal investigation at the direction of its legal department and that any evidence collected represents privileged attorney-client communication. The trust allowed Trader to review the material to support its request to void the subpoena.
According to state court records, the material includes the anonymous tip that prompted the investigation, notes of interviews with Alisna and at least one witness, the "clothes hook" camera and other evidence school officials seized from Alisna’s faculty housing apartment, images retrieved from Alisna’s computer, email communications about the investigation between school and trust officials, and reports from an employee of the school’s information technology department and the captain of security at the Kapalama campus.
The tip came through the trust’s account with EthicsPoint, an online system that allows employees of registered organizations to anonymously report illegal or unethical activities to managers.
Also included in the withheld evidence is the EthicsPoint case management file and questions trust officials prepared in advance of a chat with the anonymous tipster.
After reviewing the material, Trader ordered the trust in June to comply with the subpoena.
The trust then appealed Trader’s order to the Hawaii Supreme Court.
In January the Supreme Court said it was unable to rule on the appeal because it did not know whether Trader followed guidelines the high court previously established for ordering the disclosure of privileged communications. The court sent the case back to Trader with instructions to render a decision on the subpoena according to the guidelines.
Last week, Trader said he had applied the guidelines and came to the same conclusion — that Alisna’s constitutional right to a fair trial outweighs Kamehameha Schools’ right to confidential communications with its lawyers.
The trust completed much of its investigation before firing Alisna and referring the case to Honolulu police in March 2013.
Trader said trust officials did give police the camera and some recorded images.
He said the trust did not waive its privilege to confidential communications with its lawyers when it released the camera and images. And because school officials were not acting as agents of police, they did not need a warrant to search Alisna’s apartment and computer.
Shigetomi says Alisna may challenge the state’s use of the camera and recorded images if school officials conducted their investigation as part of a legal reporting requirement.
State law requires employees or officers of public and private schools to immediately report to police or the state Department of Human Services if they have reason to believe that child abuse has occurred or may occur in the reasonably forseeable future.
Attorney Michael Green represents the students whose privacy Alisna is charged with violating and the students’ parents. He says school officials never informed the students that they may have been crime victims and lied to the student body when announcing Alisna’s departure from the school. He said school officials even encouraged students to maintain contact with Alisna.
Green said Kamehameha Schools officials may have allowed Alisna to destroy evidence of more victims when they let him clear out his apartment before police had the chance to search it.