The theft trial of Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi will commence today with jury selection.
This marks the first time a sitting mayor in Hawaii has been tried on criminal charges in nearly 40 years. Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi was tried on a bribery charge in 1977.
State Judiciary spokeswoman Tammy Mori said jury selection alone could take up to two weeks.
Some 1,600 potential jurors have been summoned. According to an Associated Press report, Mori told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald that between 300 and 500 jurors are usually summoned for high-profile cases. She said in an email that the goal is to ensure a fair and impartial jury is selected for the trial.
Kenoi is charged with theft, tampering with public records and making a false statement under oath related to county credit card purchases.
The charges stem from the alleged abuse of his county-issued purchasing card, or pCard, for personal expenses.
Deputy Attorney General Kevin Takata plans to call an expert witness who will testify to Kenoi’s alleged lack of available funds, which he said will explain why he used his pCard.
Kenoi’s defense team of Todd Eddins and Rick Sing failed to persuade Judge Dexter Del Rosario to dismiss the indictment on Sept. 16 based on various arguments, including the allegation that the attorney general’s office leaked information to the media.
Kenoi initially told reporters he used his pCard because he did not have a personal credit card, and that he always paid it back within a month. Some of the reimbursements were not made until a hostess bar tab was made public.
The mayor was indicted March 2015 on two counts of second-degree theft, Class C felonies; two counts of third-degree theft, misdemeanors; three counts of tampering with a government record, misdemeanors; and making a false statement under oath, a petty misdemeanor.
A Class C felony is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.
Although his pCard charges of $892 for a Honolulu hostess bar tab, a $1,200 surfboard and $565 in lawyer bar association dues have been widely publicized, they are not included in the alleged crimes, which focus on 15 pCard transactions from 2011 to 2015.
Kenoi has acknowledged reimbursing the county $31,000 in unauthorized personal expenses, much of it for liquor, lavish dining and travel from 2009 until 2015. The mayor’s total expenditures on the card amounted to approximately $129,000.
In Fasi’s case, in the late 1970s, the state attorney general’s office investigated the contracts pertaining to the city’s downtown urban development project, Kukui Plaza, and brought bribery charges against Fasi and longtime campaign fundraiser and adviser Harry C.C. Chung.
The trial that began in December 1977 ended weeks later after developer Hal Hansen, a key witness, refused to testify.
In Kenoi’s trial the court will grant immunity to five of a number of county employees who will testify at trial.
Kenoi is wrapping up his second and final term as mayor.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
