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Kealoha attorney withdraws, citing ‘irretrievable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship’

Dan Nakaso
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DENNIS ODA / MARCH 1

Former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine, former deputy city prosecutor, exit federal court with attorney Cynthia Kagiwada.

Katherine Kealoha’s court-appointed attorney today asked to be removed from defending Kealoha, citing “an irretrievable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship, which cannot be reconciled.”

Attorney Cynthia Kagiwada declared in a motion she filed today in U.S. District Court that her effort to withdraw from defending Kealoha “is made in the interest of justice.”

Kagiwada’s motion was just more than one page long.

On Thursday a federal jury unanimously convicted Kealoha, a former city deputy prosecutor, on conspiracy and corruption charges, along with her husband, former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, and two current police officers.

But only Katherine Kealoha was ordered into federal custody on Friday after a federal prosecutor called her “a walking crime spree.”

U.S. District Court Chief Judge J. Michael Seabright said on Friday that he had “no doubt about Ms. Kealoha’s attempt to obstruct justice. She made a determined and consistent effort to have an innocent man incarcerated.”

Seabright ordered Kea­loha into custody until her sentencing, which is scheduled for October.

She’s facing two additional trials and Victor Bakke, a criminal defense attorney and a former deputy prosecutor, previously said the judge revoked her bail in all three cases, believing she presented an obstruction danger in the upcoming cases.

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