Attorneys for Michael Miske have accused federal prosecutors of ignoring the rules of discovery and not producing evidence — including text messages that show the parents of the man allegedly murdered at the order of the accused crime boss believed their son’s pregnant girlfriend and her father were responsible for his disappearance.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Miske mistakenly believed that Jonathan Fraser, then 21, was the driver of the car the night Miske’s son was injured in a crash on Kaneohe Bay Drive on Nov. 15, 2015. Fraser, Caleb-Jordan Miske-Lee’s best friend, was a passenger in the car and Miske- Lee died of his injuries in March 2016.
Fraser vanished July 30, 2016, and his car was found on Kuliouou Road. He was allegedly kidnapped, killed, wrapped in a large fish bag and dumped at sea, according to federal court documents. The white Toyota Sienna van used to transport Fraser’s body was abandoned and burned.
Lynn Panagakos, Miske’s attorney, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth J. Mansfield in court Friday during a hearing on her motions to compel discovery that there are text messages and other evidence of interactions between a Homeland Security Investigations special agent and Fraser’s mother, father and a cooperating witness that show Fraser’s family believed his pregnant girlfriend and her father were responsible for his disappearance.
Federal prosecutors declined to reveal the redacted names of Fraser’s parents or the witness to attorneys representing Miske and his co-defendants since Nov. 30, 2020, despite multiple motions to compel discovery, Panagakos said. Federal agents interviewed the witness in January.
According to Panagakos, a close friend of Fraser’s told his mother that he was “100%” certain Fraser’s girlfriend set him up but he didn’t tell police because he was afraid of the girlfriend and her father.
“That’s what they concealed in redacting his name from the text messages. … That is a completely separate scenario unrelated to Mr. Miske,” said Panagakos, speaking in court. “We should have known that.”
Miske was indicted June 18, 2020, with John Stancil, Kaulana Freitas, Lance Bermudez, Dae Han Moon, Preston Kimoto, Harry Kauhi, Norman Akau III, Hunter Wilson and Jarrin Young and accused of conspiring with them to run the “Miske Enterprise” through racketeering activity including murder, kidnapping, arson and robbery, according to DOJ.
The indictment, and a superseding indictment unsealed July 15, also alleges murder for hire; the use of chemical weapons; extortionate credit transactions; racketeering; interference with commerce through robbery and extortion; methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis trafficking; wire fraud; fraud in connection with identification documents; financial institution fraud; violations of the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act; money laundering; and obstruction of justice.
It charged Miske-Lee’s widow, Delia-Anne Fabro-Miske, with bank fraud, and Jason Yokoyama, co-owner of a nightclub and other businesses with Miske, of murder, kidnapping, arson, wire fraud, illegal structuring of cash transactions and bank fraud. Wilson and Akau III entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with the government.
Miske allegedly ordered and paid for the conspiracy to kidnap and kill Fraser.
Two cooperating witnesses would testify that Yokoyama, “one of the most trusted confidants of Michael J. Miske Jr.,” participated in the kidnapping and murder of Fraser, according to the government’s Aug. 3, 2021, motion to have Yokoyama detained until trial.
Phone location analysis conducted on a phone used by Yokoyama showed it was in Hawaii Kai, the area where Fraser was abducted, and later on the west side of Oahu, where the burned van was found, on the date of Fraser’s abduction, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Panagakos and attorneys representing Stancil, Moon, Young, Kimoto, Fabro-Miske and Yokoyama allege that the federal government has ignored the rules of discovery and not produced evidence in a timely manner, and in some cases, at all.
Requests for evidence have been ignored or denied with no explanation, Panagakos argued Friday, and the thousands of pages of evidence that have been shared in 15 separate productions are poorly maintained and not clear. Miske has been detained for nearly two years while the evidence gathered from his home and person at the time of his arrest as well as other evidence and clarification of redacted communications have not been given to Panagakos or co-counsel Thomas Otake.
“Some of the most basic stuff that someone in my position, the defense attorney, is going to want to look at to get started,” Panagakos said. “And there was no reason for it. We have 18-22 months of inexcusable delay. They don’t even acknowledge this is a problem. Why did it take so long? … They just ignore these requests. They should be held accountable.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Inciong said the claims of purposeful delay by the defense are “pure nonsense.”
“This notion that the government deliberately sat on this huge amount of discovery and withheld it … is nonsense,” Inciong said in court Friday. “This discovery process has been an ongoing process that began well before the case was charged and continues to this day. The process is very involved. There is a lot that needs to happen. It takes time.”
The evidence includes court-authorized Title III wiretap interceptions of wire and electronic communications; forensic extractions of multiple cellphones; audio and video recordings from controlled purchases of drugs; evidence gathered from search warrants at physical locations and social media accounts; the laboratory testing of controlled substances; the pen register and trap-and-trace toll records of numerous phones; cooperating sources and cooperating witnesses; physical surveillance that law enforcement conducted in coordination with the Title III wiretap interceptions and during controlled purchases of drugs, among other things; and voluminous financial and business records, according to court documents.
The enterprise allegedly used Miske’s various legitimate businesses to conceal and advance its illegal activities.
Those legitimate businesses included Kama‘aina Termite and Pest Control Inc., Oahu Termite &Pest Control Inc., Kama‘aina Holdings LLC, Hawaii Partners LLP, Kama‘aina Plumbing and Home Renovations, Kama‘aina Energy LLC, Makana Pacific Development LLC and the Encore Nightclub.
Panagakos pointed out that every federal agency with a criminal investigative division was involved in the case. Inciong noted that they each have their own policies and procedures that govern the collection, analysis and documentation of evidence.
“Sometimes because of the volume … this process takes weeks and weeks, more often months,” Inciong said.
Mansfield said he is familiar with cases involving massive amounts of discovery and it was one of the reasons he got out of private legal practice.
“I know how complicated it is. … It’s overwhelming and cases become about discovery and not about the merits, and that’s what’s happening in this case,” Mansfield said. “It does appear to me that you (government) are overwhelmed by your discovery obligations or indifferent to them.”
Inciong suggested the court set two deadlines for turning over discovery to all defendants in the case. Mansfield said he would issue a written order on the motions heard Friday.
