Deputy sheriffs arrested a former Honolulu police officer in connection with a theft case at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

Don Carstensen, who in the 1980s played a key role in the prosecution of underworld hit man Ronald Ching, was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of second-degree theft and was released pending investigation, according to Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman of the state Department of Public Safety.

Officials did not release additional information on the theft.

Hawaii News Now reported the theft involved a laptop taken from an airport tenant and that Carstensen works as a Securitas officer.

The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the theft case.

Carstensen worked as a police officer with the Honolulu Police Department from 1974 to 1982. He was one of two officers who met Ching at a downtown restaurant in 1980 where Ching admitted to killing four people including city Prosecutor Charles Marsland’s 19-year-old son, Charles Marsland III, and state Sen. Larry Kuriyama. One of the two officers secretly recorded the conversation.

Carstensen later became chief investigator for Marsland’s Organized Crime Strike Force. He resigned from the prosecutor’s office in 1989.