Businessman fined for illicit noni orchard

The state has fined a businessman who claims to have pioneered commercial sales of the bitter fruit noni, after he bulldozed a road to harvest a noni orchard planted illicitly on state land while claiming to own the property under authority of a nonexistent federal court.

Herbert Moniz, who established Herb’s Herbs Inc. and is involved with Noni Biotech International, recently had sought to rent the 12-acre orchard in Puna on Hawaii island from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. Instead, the agency fined Moniz $5,000 upon unanimous approval by the Board of Land and Natural Resources at a public hearing Friday.

Moniz did not attend the hearing, but said in a phone interview afterward that he made some mistakes and is disappointed that the noni trees are untended.

According to a DLNR staff report, the noni orchard is within 816 acres of state agricultural land that a papaya farm leased in 1985 through a public auction.

The papaya farm, Pacific Paradise Inc., defaulted on its lease in 1994, and another company, Tropical Hawaiian Products, took over a year later and farmed papaya on about 270 acres.

In 2009 Tropical Hawaiian quit farming the site because of economic difficulties, and when DLNR inspected the property it discovered that someone had planted noni trees on 12 acres. That someone turned out to be Roseanna Kanoa, a cousin of Moniz.

Kanoa, who farms and processes noni on adjacent land under Big Island Processing LLC, had inquired about subleasing the 12 acres from Tropical Hawaiian but was told it wasn’t allowed, according to the staff report, which said Kanoa planted the noni anyway.

When DLNR discovered the noni in 2009, the agency informed Kanoa that she had no right to use the land. The noni trees were left in the ground and grew for another seven years. Then Moniz showed up and posted signs claiming the land last year.

Area residents complained to DLNR that Moniz hung up a sign for Herb’s Herbs Inc. over a bulldozed road leading to the noni field. Another posted sign read, “KAPU FOR THE PROPERTY IS WITH THE PROTECTION BY THE FEDERAL POSTAL COURT TRESPASSING IS PROHIBITED.”

Moniz, according to the report, delivered an 89-page document to DLNR saying he owned the land under claims filed with the Federal Postal Court. Such a court does not exist, but the entity is led by someone who includes a colon as part of his name, David-Wynn: Miller.

According to an article last year in ABA Journal, an American Bar Association magazine, a federal judge in Connecticut called Miller’s purported Federal Postal Court a “sham.”

DLNR informed Moniz that the property is owned by the state and that he wasn’t allowed to post signs or harvest crops without state approval.

Moniz said he was persuaded by “Hawaiian Kingdom people” that he had rights to the land.

“I thought it was OK,” he said. “Now I’m standing by and sucking my finger, saying, ‘What am I going to do now?’”

Recently, Moniz applied to DLNR for a revocable permit to farm the noni field, but the agency recommended against it.

“Staff is convinced Mr. Moniz was aware that he did not have authorization and/or permits from any of the required authorities to bulldoze an access driveway from (Pahoa-Kalapana Road) to the existing noni field,” the report said. “Therefore, staff believes the imposition of a fine is appropriate and due to the egregious nature of the violation.”

DLNR’s board approved the fine, rejected the permit request and recommended transferring the 816 acres to the state Department of Agriculture.