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Katherine Kealoha refuses to leave jail cell to talk to lawyer about her upcoming sentencing

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / JUNE 28, 2019
                                Former city prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, seen here outside Federal Court in Honolulu in 2019, has refused to come out of her jail cell to meet with her lawyer to discuss her upcoming sentencing.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / JUNE 28, 2019

Former city prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, seen here outside Federal Court in Honolulu in 2019, has refused to come out of her jail cell to meet with her lawyer to discuss her upcoming sentencing.

Convicted former Honolulu prosecutor Katherine Kealoha has refused to come out of her jail cell to meet with her lawyer.

Kealoha’s attorney, Gary Singh, said today he tried to visit her at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center.

“My client had refused to come down twice last week to see me,” he said during a telephone hearing. “I was told by the guards she did not want to have a visit with me.”

He needed to visit her to discuss her Nov. 30 sentencing hearing.

Her now-estranged husband, retired Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, is also scheduled to be sentenced that day.

A jury convicted the Kealohas of conspiracy in a plot to frame a relative to keep him from revealing fraud that financed the couple’s lavish lifestyle.

Katherine Kealoha said she didn’t come down because of two incidents that happened in her unit at the detention center. She said she wasn’t comfortable discussing over the phone.

She said she wrote Singh a “detailed letter” explaining. He hadn’t received it yet.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright instructed Singh to wait for the letter and schedule a legal call with her so she doesn’t have to leave her unit.

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