Editorial: Reveal more about state briberies

Where there’s a bribe, there is a briber — and a bribee.

So let’s see what the rest-of-the-story brings in the criminal case of Frank James Lyon, president of the Honolulu civil engineering firm Lyon Associates Inc., who pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiring to bribe an agent of an organization that receives federal money.

But it’s much more serious than that: Lyon admitted, among other bribes, that he paid at least $240,000 in installments to a Hawaii government agency employee “and certain State Agency officials who had served on the selection committee and influenced the award of the $2.5 million State Agency contract” to Lyon’s firm.

Whoa. That detail is in court documents that outline incidents of bribery and government corruption of Lyon doing business — in Hawaii, as well as in the Federated States of Micronesia.

In the Hawaii case, the documents do not disclose — yet — the state agency involved, the identity of the state official who conspired with Lyon, the names of those bribed to pick Lyon’s firm, or the project awarded.

What little is publicly known, so far, is that Lyon’s co-conspirator worked at that state agency from about 2008 until about 2012, and that some $24,000 total also went to the co-conspirator’s relative as part of the bribery package. The corrupt payments were made to the Hawaii official ostensibly for “marketing services” to Lyon’s firm, but was actually for the official’s “participation in influencing the award of a State Agency contract in favor of” Lyon’s company, court papers show.

Tip of the iceberg. The guilty plea by Lyon — who was a Honolulu Zoning Board of Appeals member — should be prompting further investigations into this government corruption. Blind eyes cannot suffice on “pay to play” criminality.