Deputy prosecutor Katherine Kealoha spent more than $20,000 on her Hawaii County firefighter boyfriend with money from a second mortgage she and her husband obtained illegally and money she stole from her grandmother, according to a federal court document filed Monday charging the boyfriend with conspiracy.
The document suggests the boyfriend, Jesse Michael Ebersole, will plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors. Ebersole is charged with conspiring with Kealoha to lie about their relationship to the federal grand jury that returned criminal charges in October against Kealoha and her husband, retired Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha.
The Kealohas are scheduled to stand trial in U.S. District Court in November for bank fraud for allegedly lying on loan applications, including for a second mortgage which prosecutors say helped fund Katherine Kealoha’s affair with Ebersole.
The Kealohas and four former members of the Honolulu Police Department’s elite Criminal Intelligence Unit are scheduled to stand trial in March on charges that they conspired to frame Katherine Kealoha’s uncle for stealing her mailbox and lied about it to federal investigators. The March trial also will involve charges accusing Kealoha of stealing money from her uncle, her grandmother and the trust funds of minor siblings for which Kealoha was the trustee.
Federal prosecutors suggest Kealoha and Ebersole met in 2009, when they both participated in the Pacific Century Fellows program.
According to the Ebersole charging document, Kealoha paid for Ebersole’s airfare from Hilo and hotel rooms in Honolulu in August and November 2012 with money from the second mortgage on her and her husband’s Kahala home. Kealoha paid for more airfare and gave Ebersole a $1,387 cashier’s check in November 2012 funded by money she stole from a reverse mortgage she arranged on her grandmother’s Maunalani Heights home, according to the document.
Ebersole was Hawaii County’s 2012 Firefighter of the Year. The Hawaii County Fire Department said Ebersole is still a county firefighter.
According to the charging document, Ebersole appeared before the federal grand jury on April 20, May 18 and Oct. 5, 2017. Federal prosecutors wanted to ask him why Kealoha paid for his airfare and hotel rooms. In the April and October appearances, Ebersole lied about his relationship with Kealoha. In the May appearance he refused to answer questions or produce documents requested by prosecutors.
Before each of Ebersole’s grand jury appearances, federal prosecutors say, Kealoha coached him on what to say and arranged for a lawyer to represent him to oppose the government’s subpoena for documents. Prosecutors say Kealoha met with Ebersole one day before the October grand jury appearance in the lawyer’s home office.
Cynthia Kagiwada, Kealoha’s court-appointed criminal lawyer, said she and Kealoha do not wish to comment on the Ebersole charge at this time.
