Ex-officer admits faking reports used in case linked to police chief

A retired police officer has pleaded guilty to falsifying documents and altering evidence in a court case connected to Hono­lulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha.

Former criminal intelligence unit technician Niall Silva, 52, is scheduled to be sentenced April 3 before U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway.

The plea by Silva, who appeared Friday before U.S. District Magistrate Kevin Chang, lends support to the assertion by Gerard Puana, uncle of Kealoha’s wife, Katherine, that he was framed for the theft of the couple’s mailbox in June 2013.

“He (Silva) admitted today that, in fact, there was conspiracy to frame Mr. Puana,” said First Assistant Federal Defender Alexander Silvert, who is representing Puana. “If it isn’t a vindication, I don’t know what is.”

Puana has alleged the theft case against him came three months after he filed suit against Katherine Kealoha about her handling of his mother’s assets.

The criminal complaint brought by Michael G. Wheat, a San Diego-based special attorney for the U.S. attorney general, said that Silva and other co-conspirators helped to falsify records and present false testimony against Puana.

The complaint, filed Dec. 9 under court seal, does not name any of the alleged co-conspirators, but mentions that Silva was supervised in the criminal intelligence unit by a lieutenant and a captain who ultimately reported to the police chief.

The falsification of documents and false testimony occurred sometime between June 21, 2013, and June 2, 2016, according to the complaint.

The document says “Co-conspirator No. 1” falsely reported the theft of a mailbox in front of the residence. In order to “conceal and alter evidence of the alleged theft,” co-conspirator No. 2, a police officer, retrieved the hard drive from the residence’s security camera before the theft was reported.

Silva and the second co-conspirator then falsely claimed they retrieved the hard drive after the theft was reported, and Silva testified to that effect at Puana’s trial, which ended in December 2014 in a mistrial.

Puana filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday naming the chief, his wife, Katherine, and five other police officers for allegedly violating his constitutional rights in two criminal cases in 2011 and 2013.

In the civil lawsuit, he alleged Katherine Kealoha used her position as a Honolulu deputy prosecutor to keep him incarcerated for 72 days.

The complaint said co-conspirators wrote false and misleading police reports and that one of them falsely identified Puana as the person taking the mailbox based on a partial hard drive recording of the security system.

Silva’s attorney, William Harrison, said his client made a “very regrettable mistake.”

“In admitting his conduct … he was atoning for that conduct, and he has taken full and total responsibility for his actions,” he said.