Daniel Sellers, one of four former members of the Honolulu Police Department’s elite Criminal Intelligence Unit facing federal felony charges in connection with retired Police Chief Louis Kealoha’s mailbox, was expected to plead guilty today to a separate misdemeanor charge.
Federal prosecutors Thursday filed papers in U.S. District Court charging Sellers with disclosing confidential information.
For Sellers to qualify for the charge, he had to have been an officer or employee of the United States, or any of its departments or agencies, when he disclosed information accessible to him in the course of his employment or official duties. The charging document says as a CIU detective, Sellers was cross-sworn as a federal agent and deputy.
The papers do not say what information Sellers disclosed. But it does say he disclosed it to Kealoha’s wife, former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, with whom Sellers maintained a friendship since meeting in high school.
The Kealohas, Sellers and three other former CIU members are accused of taking part in a scheme to frame Katherine Kealoha’s uncle with stealing the mailbox, then lying about it to federal investigators to cover up their actions. Their trial is set for March.
Sellers is the only defendant who was not charged with conspiracy in connection with the mailbox. His charges accuse him of
unlawfully entering and searching the uncle’s home, lying about it to a grand jury and lying to the FBI about watching surveillance video of the mailbox being taken.
The government is
expected to drop the felony charges in exchange for Sellers’ cooperation and guilty plea to the
misdemeanor.
The other former CIU members facing trial in March are Gordon Shiraishi, Derek Wayne Hahn and Minh-Hung “Bobby” Nguyen. Shiraishi retired from HPD in 2017 before getting indicted.
The department reassigned Sellers, Hahn and Nguyen from CIU and placed them on restricted duty after prosecutors
notified them that they were targets of the federal investigation into the mailbox theft. All three are on leave without pay.
