Woman sues Bank of Hawaii for photo error that wrongly identified her as theft suspect

A woman is suing Bank of Hawaii after she was wrongly identified as a forgery and theft suspect in a Honolulu CrimeStoppers television news segment that was based on video surveillance footage provided by the bank.

Sarasa Koide Coyle filed the complaint June 22 with the 1st Circuit Court seeking $3 million in punitive and special damages after the bank failed to apologize until a month and a half later for the error that caused her fear, anxiety and embarrassment, according to the lawsuit.

The CrimeStoppers segment that aired on KHON in March was also posted online and was taken down once the error was discovered — but not before Koide Coyle’s photo as a suspected criminal was reposted, retweeted and disseminated numerous times, “reaching tens of thousands, … if not millions of Internet and social media users worldwide,” the lawsuit alleges.

The 39-year-old restaurant server first learned about the CrimeStoppers report when a friend texted her asking, “Is that you?” shortly after the KHON segment was aired, according to her attorney, Andrew Stewart of Showa Law Office. He said Koide Coyle became extremely self- conscious after the incident, knowing that some of her co-workers and others had seen the report.

“Hawaii’s a small place, and she’s lived here for 12 years, established her reputation, so that was especially hurtful,” Stewart said. “She was in tears when I first talked to her. My client’s devastated, especially because she’s from Japan. Reputation is kind of a big deal.”

Bank of Hawaii characterized the matter as “an unfortunate human error” in an email responding to questions from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“We immediately reached out to the customer to apologize as soon as we learned of the situation. Under these circumstances, Bank of Hawaii’s communication with HPD is not actionable and the bank will defend itself against these claims,” according to the email.

Bank of Hawaii said it received a request from HPD to assist with pulling video footage in connection with a forgery investigation. “In our efforts to assist HPD and cooperate with law enforcement, we released footage to HPD that we believed was responsive to its request at the time, but which we later discovered was incorrect,” the email said.

“As soon as we were made aware of the situation, we immediately notified HPD of the error and worked with HPD to successfully retract the footage as soon as possible.”

Honolulu CrimeStoppers coordinator Sgt. Chris Kim said a Honolulu Police Department detective received the footage from Bank of Hawaii, and it was posted on the CrimeStoppers website under its Na Maka section just a few days before KHON aired its weekly CrimeStoppers segment in late March.

The Na Maka post said the forgery suspect entered the Bank of Hawaii’s Waikiki branch on Nov. 2 and presented a forged check. Kim said the post was immediately removed upon learning of the error.

Kim, who has been with CrimeStoppers since 2017, said he has never encountered a similar mistake.

He said the real thief was a woman but he does not know if Koide Coyle bears any resemblance to her or if the culprit was ever caught.

Stewart said his client thinks the image was taken Sept. 1 when she made a rare visit to the bank during the pandemic.

“The video wasn’t even from that day (of the crime),” Stewart said. “The bank said they sent the wrong video.”

He said that after the erroneous report, Koide Coyle “was scared to go out,” fearing she would be arrested, and hasn’t been back to the bank since.

Koide Coyle’s then- husband went in to talk to the branch manager right after they discovered the mistake, Stewart said. “They had to contact the bank,” he said. “The bank never contacted them. It took another month and a half after the bank sent a letter.”

The letter, dated May 17 and sent by Alex Burtscher in the bank’s corporate security office, apologized to Koide Coyle “for the inconvenience and difficulties you may have experienced with respect to the erroneous image sent to the Honolulu Police Department.”

“We identified the error was the result of missing a step in our verification process,” he wrote. “We accept full responsibility for the error and are deeply embarrassed by this. We have already implemented the necessary verification steps to prevent this type of error from happening in the future.”

The lawsuit alleges Bank of Hawaii’s actions were defamatory and that bank employees acted negligently, willfully, maliciously and with reckless indifference to the consequences of their actions.

By doing so, Koide Coyle’s character and reputation were damaged, and continue to be, and she continues to suffer mental anguish, the lawsuit alleges.

“It’s still on the internet,” Stewart said. “It’s not completely gone. That’s the thing about the internet. Once it’s out there, it’s out there in perpetuity.”