A Conversation with Alexander Silvert on "The Mailbox Conspiracy" That Brought Down a Police Chief and A Prosecutor

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[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_03]: One of my very favorite type of mysteries are the ones you would see on shows like

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Columbo.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_03]: An intelligent and savvy investigator notices some tiny details that don't quite add

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_03]: up, and he starts questioning them.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the dominoes start to fall, ultimately leading to the exposure of a major crime.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: This is one of those stories.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_03]: It begins with something that seems relatively trivial, the theft of someone's mailbox.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_03]: But by the time it is over, the chief of police of Honolulu and his wife, a

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_03]: prosecutor in that city, will both end up with substantial prison sentences.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_03]: How on earth can something as innocuous as taking a person's mailbox result in such

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_03]: serious consequences?

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: To get the story, we spoke with Alexander Silvert.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Alexander is the author of The Mailbox Conspiracy, an absolutely wonderful book

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: that charts all the bizarre twists and turns in this fascinating case.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But he is also one of the main players in this case.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: A federal defender, it was Alexander who got the opportunity to defend the man accused

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: of stealing that mailbox.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was Alexander who noticed that several important details didn't quite add up.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It is an amazing tale, and we were thrilled to hear it from a man who was at the

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_03]: very center of these fascinating events.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Anya Cain.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a journalist.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Kevin Greenlee.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm an attorney.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_03]: We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_03]: into murder cases.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is a conversation with Alexander Silvert on The Mailbox Conspiracy that

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_03]: brought down a police chief and a prosecutor.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for joining us here today to talk about this really fascinating case.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to start, though, by talking about you.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not from Hawaii originally, as you can probably tell from my accent.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from the East Coast.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from New York City.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up and was raised on the East Coast and went to school there.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I met my wife who is from Hawaii when I went to law school.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And originally after law school, she came back here.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And then after a year moved to Philadelphia where I was a state public

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: defender for a number of years.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: We lived in Philadelphia for five years and I became a federal public defender in

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Philadelphia for my last two years I was there.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I transferred to Hawaii in 1989 and we moved back with our three

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: week old son in tow.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I became a federal public defender in Hawaii where I served for over 33 years,

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: becoming the first assistant federal public defender before I retired.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_03]: The relationship between a criminal defense attorney and his client has to be

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_03]: so personal and almost intimate, almost like a marriage in some ways.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But in public defense, it's an arranged marriage and these people

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_03]: haven't picked you out.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_03]: How in that sort of situation are you able to build rapport with people

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_03]: who don't even know you?

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Right as a public defender, as you said, we get appointed by the court

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: for indigent defendants.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't get hired.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't get paid by the defendant.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And that does create a lack of trust right off the bat.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Also, most of my clients don't even think that we're real lawyers.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't even think we went to law school.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And if we did go to law school, it's like the Joe Schmo barbershop

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_02]: quartet law school.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: They really don't trust us and they also believe if we were any good,

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: we would be in private practice.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_02]: What they don't understand is as a federal public defender, we dedicate our

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_02]: entire lives to one area of the law, which is criminal defense.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So we actually, because we have the resources and we have an entire office

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: that's working on their case, in Hawaii at least, we became known as

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: the best lawyers that no one could hire.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: One way you build trust, of course, is you spend time with your client.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't rush to judgment.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: You hear them out.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: No matter how ludicrous their stories might be, which they often are, you hear

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_02]: them out and you listen to them and you do the work before you get to the

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_02]: final result of what you think they should be doing, whether they should

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_02]: plead guilty or go to trial.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It takes a lot of work.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of its reputation, I had garnered a reputation over the years of being a

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: very aggressive defense attorney.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So that helped.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The fact that I was first assistant helped because it gave me status as my position.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But it really, for a lot of defendants, takes a lot of work and many times

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: they never trust you.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the stories I always tell is at the end of a case, oftentimes a

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_02]: defendant who's just been sentenced to 15 or 20 years where the

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: prosecutor was arguing for 25 or 30 and I was arguing for less, they

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_02]: shake the hands of the prosecutor as opposed to my hand.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just kind of a natural thing that always seemed to happen.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Gosh, it sounds pretty thankless, but I mean, this is something that I think

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a huge misconception in true crime that public defenders are somehow

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_01]: bad when in fact, in our experience, they're people who are dedicated

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: to this work, as you said.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to ask you, how does federal public defense differ from perhaps

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: more at the state or county level?

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: When I was a state public defender in Philadelphia, our caseload was tremendous.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have anywhere from two to 300 cases a week that I would

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02]: have to appear in court on.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: With a caseload like that, you don't have a lot of time to prep.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You rarely, I mean, I would meet my clients sometimes for the

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: first time in the courtroom.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There's just not a lot of investigation and prep time that you can do in some

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_02]: of these cases.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: On the federal side, cases are much slower.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_02]: They go through the system in months and I have time to meet with the client.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a full staff.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I have three investigators.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I have paralegals.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I have secretaries that can do some of the legwork.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can spend a lot more time in federal court investigating, meeting a

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: client, working up a case than I ever could in state court.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's not to say state public defenders aren't any good.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just the crush of workload that a state public defender usually faces

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: sometimes overwhelms your ability to do the best you can in every case.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I really thought it was interesting that you mentioned in the book that when

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_03]: you were very young, your mother would take you to like anti Nixon rallies.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was kind of interesting because in a way this case we're about to start

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_03]: discussing reminded me a little bit of Watergate because it's something that

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_03]: starts with something relatively small and inconsequential and then balloons

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_03]: into something quite huge.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So can you tell us about Gerard Pujana and how you first became

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_03]: involved with this case?

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So Mr.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Pujana, Gerard Pujana was originally arrested by the Honolulu Police

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Department on state charges of felony theft.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It was alleged that he actually stole an entire mailbox from in front of a

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: residence in Kahala, which is one of the richest neighborhoods in Hawaii.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So he was arrested by Honolulu Police Department charged with a state crime.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But then two days later, after he was arrested, the U S postal inspector

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_02]: picked up the case and the case was transferred over to federal court.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I got involved and picked up the case when it

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_02]: came into federal court.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_03]: So when you first met him, obviously you didn't know about his family

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_03]: situation.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I know he was involved in a civil lawsuit at the time, which I think

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_03]: we're getting the details of that a little bit later, but it was a civil

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_03]: suit against Catherine and Louis K.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Aloha.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us who they are and what their positions were in the

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_03]: community?

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the reasons I took the case as first assistant, I assign all

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: the cases in the office and you know, I've been doing this for so long

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and having so many drug cases and bank robberies and scam cases that,

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And in the entire history of my office and in, in my life, I had never

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: seen this type of case prosecuted in federal court.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: For us, this is a very low level case that we've never seen in

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: federal court.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's unusual.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the theft of a mailbox.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We never heard of such a thing coming into federal court, which is why I

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: took it because there was just something different.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But what I found out from looking at the officer's affidavit, which

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_02]: is attached to the charging document, is that the mailbox that was stolen

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: belonged to Louis K.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Aloha, who was the chief of police for the Honolulu police department,

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_02]: the 20th largest police department in the United States and his wife,

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine K.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Aloha, who happened to be the third highest ranking prosecutor in the

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: state.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: She was head of the career offender unit in the deputy prosecutor

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_02]: CUNY attorney's office.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So that to me was really interesting that they were the alleged victims in

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: the case.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: As someone who's been on the defense side of things for so long, I imagine

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_01]: there's like a certain level of adversarialness with prosecutors and

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_01]: police.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But did the K.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Alohas have a decent reputation in the Honolulu community or was their

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: where there was their talk, I guess?

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_02]: At the time, they were the darlings of the Hawaii community.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: They were on front pages of local magazines as the Hawaii power couple

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_02]: because they're Hawaiian and they had risen to such high ranks and

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: prominence in law enforcement that they were very much held in high

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: esteem by everybody.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: No one really had an inkling that anything negative or nefarious was

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_02]: going on.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_03]: What were some of the things early on that began to indicate to you that

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_03]: maybe there was something out of the ordinary or kind of strange about

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_03]: this case?

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So what happened was on June, the night of June 21st, 2013, someone

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: drove up to the residence where the K.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Aloha residence in Kahala is seen on a surveillance video because

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there are six cameras outside of the residence and three caught the

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_02]: alleged theft.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Someone drives up, gets out of their vehicle, goes up to this mailbox,

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: which is a mailbox that you have to have to purchase from a

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: mainland store.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They cost a lot of money.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They're heavy made of aluminum iron and they're not something you

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: buy at the local hardware store.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And the person goes up to it, looks at it, shakes it and then actually

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: lifts the mailbox sub off the pedestal that it's supposed to be welded

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: to and walks off with it, puts it in the car and drives off.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine K.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Aloha calls 911 just like you and I would the next day at 1 28 in

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_02]: the afternoon and reports the theft of her mailbox.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Two beat cops show up and they process the scene.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_02]: They take measurements.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: They take photographs.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They take her statements.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that she wrote in her statement, so this is a

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_02]: statement that she writes herself and it's signed by her under oath

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: is that the mailbox that was stolen was a Gaines manufacturing company

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: mailbox valued at $380.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And the police officer writes that down.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: She writes it down and swears to it.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And the officer takes a crime scene photograph of the pedestal, which

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: is all that's left from the mailbox.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: When we got that, what happened was I had met with Mr.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Pua and I was doing my usual when I meet with a client, I don't

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: go right into the case at all.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I've learned that you've got to build trust.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You kind of go have to do a slow process.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And since I have the luxury in federal court of having time, my

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: usual first meeting with a defendant is about an hour, hour and a half long.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just talk about the law.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't talk about their case at all.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And I explain how the federal court system works and what he's to look

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: forward to and what a trial is and what the stages of the cases are so

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that they get to learn the process, which they don't know, and they get

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: to hear me and learn that they can, you know, I'm knowledgeable and

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_02]: we're beginning to build report.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, throughout my first meeting with Gerard, he kept insisting that

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: he was innocent and wanted me to believe that he was innocent.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, innocence is a word you never hear in a trial, whether it's state or

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: federal, because that's way too high a burden for a defendant to

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: try to prove to a jury.

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[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant is

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: guilty.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: The defendant doesn't have to prove anything much less that he's innocent.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: If the government can't prove with their evidence that the person is

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they lose the case.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't find the defendant innocent.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: They just lose the case.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But Gerard was insistent that he was innocent and he wanted me to

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: prove that he was innocent.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So I knew right off the bat, number one, this was going to be a

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: difficult case and it may be a difficult client because he was

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: expecting way too much.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And given what little I knew about the case, which was there's a

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: surveillance video that allegedly shows a man stealing the mailbox.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's no question the mailbox was stolen and the, the KLO has who

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: are Louie and Catherine, who are Gerard's Catherine is Gerard's.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_02]: He is her uncle, their family.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_02]: They all know each other.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So what was happening here is this is an identification by the

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_02]: chief of police and his prosecutor wife of a family member stealing their

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: mailbox from a surveillance video.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02]: To me, that's pretty solid evidence if it's true and it, you know, my

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: clients can tell me they're innocent or not guilty all they want, but

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_02]: the reality in federal court, and this is not only in Hawaii, but

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: across the nation is that 95% of everyone charged in federal

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: court pleads guilty.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So think about that for a second to put it in perspective.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_02]: If there's a room of a hundred people, 95 are pleading guilty.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: That's just statistics.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So when, you know, I have lots of clients who come in and say, I'm

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: not guilty, you know, I have an alibi of this and when we're all

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: said and done, none of that's true.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And they ended up pleading guilty to the best deal we can get.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So here's Gerard, not only saying he's not guilty, but he's

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: innocent and he wants me to prove he's innocent and given what little

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I knew about the case from the affidavit, that seemed like a reach.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So after he left that first day, given his position, we decided,

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_02]: okay, we've got to start working on this case and doing our due

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: diligence and the easiest thing to do, cause we hadn't received

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_02]: the videotape yet.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously if we watch the videotape and that's him in the

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: videotape, I don't care what he says, you know, that's him.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But since we hadn't received it yet, what we did get was the police

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: scene photograph of the mailbox pedestal.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So we sent in those days, it was faxed.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We faxed the picture, the crime scene photo to the Gaines

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_02]: manufacturing company and just said to them, could you look at the

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: pedestal and just tell us what mailbox belongs on top of that

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_02]: mailbox, that pedestal?

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, to our shock and amazement within minutes of sending the

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_02]: facts, a representative Gaines manufacturing company calls us and

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: says, that's not our pedestal.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't make a pedestal like that.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And therefore since pedestals and mailboxes are unique systems

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: that belong to each other, they're built for one another.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_02]: In other words, you can't buy a pedestal A and put mailbox from another

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_02]: company or a different mailbox, even from the same company on that

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: pedestal, there's one system.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So this person said, that's not our pedestal, therefore it's

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: not our company mailbox.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was even better than that because he was able to tell us,

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I know what company actually makes that pedestal.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And he sent us over to the solar group company and said, they're

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_02]: the ones who make it.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So we then took that photograph and we sent it to the solar group

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: company and they came back and told us, Oh yeah, that is our pedestal.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And here's the mailbox that fits on top of that pedestal.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And what we learned within days of starting this investigation was

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_02]: that the KALOAs had lied about the make and model of the mailbox

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_02]: that was stolen because it wasn't the Gaines manufacturing mailbox.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a solar group company mailbox.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And that right there started us off.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Who lies about the type of mailbox that is stolen, especially when

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine KALOA wrote under oath what the mailbox was that she claimed was stolen.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So right off the bat, we had caught at least Catherine KALOA in a tremendous lie.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But we also caught Honolulu police department in a lie because they're

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: the ones who investigated the case and they had assigned a detective to do an

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: evaluation because whenever there's a theft, if your house gets burglarized

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and you claim you had all this jewelry that was valued at $20,000, they're not

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_02]: taking your word for it.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to have a professional appraiser who is usually a detective in

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: the police department, take the information, evaluate it, and come back

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: with their own assessment of the value of what was really stolen.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what HPD did.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And their detective wrote a report that also said it was a Gaines

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Manufactory mailbox that was stolen at the value of $380.

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So not only did we have Catherine KALOA lying about the make and model of the

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_02]: mailbox, we now had an HPD detective lying as well.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the key to this, which we didn't understand at the time, was why?

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Why would they lie about this?

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the most significant facts that we determined was that because

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard was originally going to be charged under state law, which is theft

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: under any state law, but Hawaii in particular, there are different

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_02]: gradations of charges under a theft.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It goes from the highest felony.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_02]: If you steal something that's valued at a lot down to misdemeanors,

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: depending upon the value of the item stolen and under Hawaii law at the

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: time, anything over $300 was a felony, which is a serious crime and can get

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: you jail and has other ramifications up if it's a felony crime.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything under $300 is a misdemeanor, which doesn't carry all those

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_02]: penalties and usually results in probation.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, what we determined was that the Gaines Manufactory

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_02]: mailbox that the KALOA and HPD said it was, was valued at $380,

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_02]: making it a felony.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But the solar group manufacturing mailbox that was really stolen was

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: valued at $180, making it a misdemeanor.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was one of the reasons that we determined they lied about

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_02]: the make and model of the mailbox.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And that fact itself, that whole scenario about the mailbox is

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: really what drove us forward because that really was something significant

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and something we could use at a trial.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was really, that got my mind spinning too.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, another thing that I found interesting was that early on Mr.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Guana was telling stories that frankly seemed a little hard to believe at

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_03]: first about how he was being surveilled by mysterious vehicles and stuff.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_03]: But he was able to convince you with some evidence that

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_03]: those stories were true.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_03]: How was he able to do that?

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things that Gerard kept telling me was that in the days

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: before he was ever even identified as a suspect.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So in terms of dating, June 9th or June 21st is the mailbox

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_02]: theft, June 22nd, 2013, Catherine reports it to the police.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't until June 29th that Catherine KALOA allegedly for the

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_02]: first time ever identifies Gerard as being the person in the video.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the first time, according to the Honolulu police department

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: detective who was investigating the case in his reports, that Gerard

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: is ever identified as a suspect.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But Gerard kept telling us days before he was identified as a suspect,

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: according to the police report, he felt he was being followed by the police.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Now Gerard turned out to be a unique client and one of my best clients ever

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: because he was in his private life, formerly a private investigator

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: security guard, and he had learned a little bit about doing surveillance

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: himself.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So what he had done during these days when he felt he was being

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_02]: followed, he had actually taken photographs through his rear view

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: and side mirror of his vehicle of the cars he believed were following him.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So he presented us with the photographs that showed the cars and

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: luckily we were able to read the license plates of those vehicles.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So through a really, a lot of subpoena work, it took a lot of time

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and a lot of effort.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_02]: We were able to determine that every single vehicle that he took a

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_02]: photograph of that he believed was following him turned out to actually

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_02]: be Honolulu Police Department owned vehicles owned by police officers,

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: including the very detective who was investigating him, who said, you

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: know, he wasn't even named a suspect until June 29th.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: The great thing about photographs when you take them on your phone is

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: there's something called mega data.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And that means every time, if you look at the picture and you can look

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: at the data that belongs to that picture, which tells you the location,

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: the date and time and pixels and everything else about when that

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_02]: photograph was actually taken.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So we could prove by the mega data that those photographs were taken

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_02]: days earlier than when Gerard Pointo was actually ever identified as a

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_02]: suspect.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So the obvious question is, I mean, I've heard of good police work

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: before, but I've never seen police work where you're following somebody

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: where he's never even been named as a suspect.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And that also seems to really take it to a whole new level because it

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_03]: raises the idea that the KLO has are misusing actual public agencies

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_03]: to do whatever bidding is here.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, what we uncovered was only the tip of the iceberg

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_02]: because much later it was determined that not only was Gerard being followed

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_02]: before he was ever identified as a suspect, but he had been under

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_02]: surveillance for four years on and off by HPD because the Katherine Kelo

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: kept identifying him as a perpetrator of some crime against her or another.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what we had learned at the time, which was only that we could

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_02]: had been followed in the days before he was even named a suspect, actually

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_02]: turned out that the KLO is or at least Katherine Kelo was using her

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: position to get something on him years before this happened.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: How were you able to use the press to help you with this case, to

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: help with your investigation?

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Over the course of the investigation, we had received police reports, of

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_02]: part of discovery process from the prosecutor, and we had several

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_02]: statements that Katherine Kelo made under oath.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So we knew kind of what she was going to say.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And we knew a lot of what she said wasn't accurate.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But Louis Keloa, who was the chief of police, was

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02]: going to be a witness as well.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: He was going to come forward and identify Gerard of being the person

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_02]: in the video.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So we somehow, we wanted to find out if we could discredit Louis Keloa.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But of course there was no way he was going to talk to us.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of the things you have to learn about the difference

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: between law enforcement is the U S attorney and the government has

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_02]: the power of the grand jury and they have the power of the badge.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And they go up to people and say, you know, we'd like to question

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_02]: you and most people being law abiding citizens answer their

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: questions and talk to them.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: If they won't, they can be thrown in front of a grand jury and forced to

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: testify, but as defense attorney, my investigators have no such power.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I can go up to somebody and ask them to talk to me and they can just

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_02]: say no and walk away.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that's the end of it.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I have no recourse.

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Louis Keloa, you know, police officers never talk to us.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Agents never talk to us because they know there's nothing good that's

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02]: going to come out from talking to the defense.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So they just don't talk to us.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So Louis Keloa was never going to talk to me before the case, before he

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_02]: testified and we were desperate to try to hear what he was going to say.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because in the police reports that we were given, Louis Keloa's name

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_02]: never appeared other than that.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_02]: He would identify the person in surveillance videos being drawn.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: He never made a statement.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had nothing.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_02]: What happened was during the course of our investigation, there had been

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_02]: another incident involving a police officer that had nothing to do with

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_02]: our case where the police officer was caught in a store video tape,

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: beating up his girlfriend in the store.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And that had become a big issue in Hawaii because the officer who

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_02]: is clearly identifiable and clearly had beat up his girlfriend was not

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_02]: charged and the press was going after Louis and asking him questions

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_02]: about why wasn't he charged?

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And Louis had made the statement, well, this is, you know, 15, 20 seconds

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_02]: of video tape, you don't know what happened before or after.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And it would be derelict of me and it wouldn't be due process if I would,

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, go out and charge this person based upon this little video tape.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, in my case with Gerard, we had 15 seconds of video tape showing

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_02]: someone stealing the mailbox and it was very hazy and foggy and it wasn't

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: clear that it was Gerard at all.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And so after we looked at it, you couldn't say it was him, even though

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_02]: the person in the video tape was dressed up to look like him, but he had

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_02]: no problem charging Gerard.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So that really incensed me.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So I used that as my hook and decided we would take the risk of going to

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: the press before the trial and trying to get them interested in the case.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Cause you know, this was a nothing case.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody knew anything about it.

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It was not on anybody's screen in the press.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just a mailbox theft.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It was, you know, kind of unique that involved the KALOAs, but

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_02]: nobody was watching this case.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So we went to the press and decided we're going to try to get some

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: members of the press interested in this so that they could question

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Louis KALOA and ask the questions that we wanted to ask and

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: see if he would respond.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a real risk because we had to show to them some of the

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence that we had, which the government didn't know.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And we just decided though, you know, we researched, we found a couple

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_02]: members of the press that we believe would be hold our secret and wouldn't

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_02]: blab it out to the world and, but would be interested.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And the luckily we found two members of the press who were interested.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And at a press conference where Louis was defending himself with

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_02]: about the police officer at the end of that press conference, finally,

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: someone asked Louis a question about our case and his role in it.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And the answer that he gave was absolutely golden for us.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So what Louis said happened, now I'm going to backtrack just so

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_02]: you put this in context.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine said they didn't notice the mailbox missing until Louis

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_02]: went surfing at six o'clock in the morning, the next day, June 22nd.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_02]: He saw it was missing.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Goes surfing, comes back around nine tells Catherine about the mailbox

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_02]: missing and then they decide that she's going to call 911, which happens

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_02]: at one 28 that afternoon.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, in the press conference, when he's asked about it, he said,

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_02]: well, look, look, you know, I know I'm the victim and it would be

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_02]: improper for me to be involved in investigating this case.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So I took a hands-off approach and I went out that evening on the

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: 21st at night, saw the mailbox missing, called my deputy chief of police,

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Ms. Mary McCully and told her about the mailbox missing because I know

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't do anything and she ran the investigation.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: She informed this very secretive unit within HPD called the

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_02]: criminal intelligence unit, CIU, about what had happened.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And she ran the investigation.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I had nothing to do with it.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the story that he was telling the feds was the original story I told you,

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02]: which is he didn't see it until the morning and he comes back and tells

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine so the stories don't jive.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But more importantly, now that we knew Mary McCully was allegedly the one who

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_02]: was told about it in the evening, her name never appears in the police reports.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_02]: There's no mention of Mary McCully in starting this investigation,

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_02]: running the investigation.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing.

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it turns out we learned later that Mary McCully, the deputy chief of

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_02]: police couldn't have run the investigation and wasn't told anything

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_02]: because as she said in a deposition later on, she was in France at the time

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_02]: this happened, out of contact with anybody.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't return until two or three weeks later when the chief told her

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_02]: about what had happened.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So his entire story to the press about what happened that evening

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_02]: was completely made up.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we had something tremendous to cross examine him about at trial.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_03]: There's so much lying in deceit here and the motivation seems to be this

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_03]: civil suit that your client Mr.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Florence Juana filed against the KLO has.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us the details about the suit and what they were alleging?

[00:36:40] Right.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, in a jury trial, a lot of people don't understand this

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_02]: motive.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_02]: A reason why a defendant commits a crime is not an element of the

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: offense.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: For example, if you rob a bank, the elements of the offense are that it's

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_02]: FDIC insured by the federal government.

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That gives us jurisdiction that the person took money that didn't belong to

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02]: them, you know, by threat or force.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all the government has to prove.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to prove why the defendant did it, you know, that he's a

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_02]: drug addict or homeless or needed the money or whatever, but always in TV,

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_02]: but particularly even in trials, you know, the motive, why a person

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: commits the crime is always played out.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason the government tries to show motive is because it

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: convinced a person, a juror.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this makes sense.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: This is why this person who otherwise might be law abiding,

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_02]: might commit this crime.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_02]: In our case, because we were going to put the KLOAs on trial and HPD on

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_02]: trial, we wanted to prove motive.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_02]: We wanted to prove why would the KLOs risk their entire careers

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_02]: on such a stupid thing?

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it is, you got to think about this is pretty stupid.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we knew, we, you know, we had them, we knew they were lying,

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_02]: but we felt in order to convince the jury,

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_02]: we had to prove why.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So in talking to Florence Puauna, who is Gerard's mother, who's

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine KLOAs grandmother, she was 93 at the time this all started in 2013.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_02]: What we found out was that in 2009 Florence Puauna, who owned her

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: residence in a nice part of Honolulu, wanted to buy a condominium for Gerard.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But in Hawaii, one of the things that happens with old families is they

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_02]: are land rich, but cash poor.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very common here.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's why generations upon generations live in the same house because the

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_02]: living wages for common jobs does not meet the cost of living in Hawaii.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So families tend to live together, but they don't have

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_02]: cash, but they have land because they've inherited it.

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So Florence had built this home right before Pearl Harbor with her

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_02]: husband and she had it and it was the only thing she had.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_02]: She lived on social security.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_02]: She's 93 years old.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard, because he was disabled from a work accident working at

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Pearl Harbor received SSI benefits.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's all they had.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They had no money, but she wanted to buy him a condo.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So they reached out to Katherine Kailoa.

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_02]: The Puauna family is this huge family.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a big Ohana in Hawaii.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Katherine was the only one who ever graduated college and had

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_02]: a postgraduate degree, she became a lawyer.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_02]: She was the darling of the family.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone looked up to her, including Florence.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So Florence reaches out to Katherine and tells her the problem.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And Katherine comes up with an ingenious solution.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_02]: The solution was you get Florence, you get a reverse mortgage on your home.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Take out that money, which was about, they ended up taking out over $500,000.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Take $390,000 and buy Gerard his condo.

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I being Katherine Kailoa, who was having some financial issues at the time.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll use a little money, pay off my debts.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I, with my good credit and my name will get a personal bank

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_02]: loan for the entire amount.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I will pay off the reverse mortgage.

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And all that Gerard has to do is pay Katherine back the monthly

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: loan that she has to pay for the personal loan that she took out.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is exactly what happened.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So they take out a reverse mortgage.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Florence buys Gerard his home.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And Gerard for the next three years, every month is paying Katherine over

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: $800 a month to pay back the personal loan that she allegedly took out

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and to pay off the mortgage.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So what happened was right after this was all originally set up.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And remember none of this is in writing.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_02]: This is just a family deal.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and for those of you who are out there who are elderly, you

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_02]: should learn a lesson from this.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't even trust your family and put things in writing.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_02]: What happened is that a few months after they did this, where they thought

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_02]: everything was done because Katherine had opened up a PO box where she said all

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_02]: of the financial documents, everything will come and Katherine would deal

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_02]: with it because she's going to do all the paperwork, which really meant

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_02]: that Florence never saw any of the paperwork and they opened up a joint

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_02]: bank account where all the money flowed in.

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course Katherine had access to that and got all the bank statements.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: What happened was a couple of months after this was all done, Florence

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: gets a bank statement, of course from the bank company and saying,

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_02]: here's your mortgage.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, here's your loan paperwork.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And so Florence, this is back in 2009 calls Katherine says, I don't

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_02]: understand, didn't you pay this off?

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And Katherine assures her, don't worry.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We paid it all off.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the paperwork just hasn't caught up.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't worry about it.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And then for the next three years, Florence doesn't get any more

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_02]: paperwork and everything is fine.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, in 2012, after three years of having this mortgage that was

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: supposedly paid off, what happens if you're a homeowner, you know, what happens

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: after three years, your first bank sells the mortgage to a second bank.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what happened.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_02]: The second bank didn't send their notice that they had just bought, taken

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: over the mortgage to the post office box where Katherine was

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_02]: intercepting everything they sent it to the residents.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so in 2012, Florence receives bank paperwork that says we're your new

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_02]: bank for your mortgage, your reverse mortgage.

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Here's your current balance.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_02]: $670,000 thereabouts.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And Florence is flabbergasted.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's not supposed to be any mortgage.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard's been paying every month for three years.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Everything's done.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So she starts reaching out to Katherine.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Katherine will not answer her phone.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_02]: The family starts reaching out to Katherine.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Katherine will not answer her phone.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And then finally, in September of 2012, Florence writes, hires a lawyer, a family

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_02]: lawyer who just says, write her a letter, take back your power of attorney and

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_02]: tell her, look, you got to tell us what's going on here.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise we're going to have to sue you in civil court.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So Florence writes a one page letter.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually really nice.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's rather sad saying, I don't understand what's happening.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: What's going on here?

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We trusted you, you know, please tell us what's happening.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm going to, I'm taking away the power of attorney.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, in response to that five days later, Katherine writes two, seven page

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_02]: letters, one to Florence, her grandmother who's now 95 and one to the family,

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_02]: the Puauna family, that's seven pages long.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's bolded.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's capitalized.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a letter that nobody would never write to their family member,

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_02]: much like a lawyer write this type of letter, screaming for seven pages, telling

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_02]: everybody that Florence is a liar.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_02]: She's a cheat.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They, she didn't take any money from her.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_02]: All of this is lies and she's going to go after them.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And part of the letter says, and this is the part of the letter that we used

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_02]: as our proof, our motive of how vehement Katherine Caloa was that anyone

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_02]: who makes these accusations will rue the day they lied.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, after all that happened and Katherine wouldn't come, you know, help them

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_02]: by March of 2013, the next year Florence files a civil lawsuit against Katherine.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_02]: The civil lawsuit is damning.

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's alleging elder abuse, elder fraud, theft, and abuse of fiduciary duty.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things they found out, the Puanas found out was that after

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_02]: the house, the condominium had been bought, there was $125,000 or $160,000

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_02]: left in the bank account.

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, by the time Florence realized something was wrong, every penny

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_02]: of that had been siphoned off by Katherine.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It was gone.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So not only did she never get a loan and pay off the reverse mortgage,

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_02]: she stole all the other money in the bank from her own grandmother.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So in March 2012, they filed this lawsuit.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The lawsuit, a civil lawsuit doesn't put anybody in jail.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a criminal thing.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just that, you know, you did something wrong and I want to recoup my loss.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So they sued for the recovery of the mortgage and all the money that was

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_02]: stolen and all the money that Gerard had given her and paid her over

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_02]: the course of three years.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_02]: The real problem with the lawsuit for Katherine is if she lost the lawsuit,

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_02]: she probably lose her license to be a lawyer and she'd be fired from her job

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_02]: because she's a lawyer, she's a prosecutor.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And if she's found liable for this type of behavior as a lawyer, it's

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_02]: going to end your career and it's going to end your reputation in the community.

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So Katherine Calo files a counter suit claiming she's being defamed by the

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Puanists and this is all in March of 2013.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you remember the dating, it's June of 2013 that allegedly Puan is

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_02]: seen stealing this mailbox, which they want to prosecute as a felony.

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason I go back to it being a felony and why that's important

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_02]: is because in a civil lawsuit, if a person takes a stand and they have a

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_02]: certain type of felony conviction, that conviction can be used against them

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_02]: on cross-examination in front of a jury to show that they're not a credible

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_02]: witness, that they're a liar, that they've been convicted of a felony

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_02]: and therefore they shouldn't be believed.

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we believed happened was that Katherine was so worried about

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_02]: this civil lawsuit that she was out to do anything she could to win it.

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, discrediting a 95 year old woman when there's nothing in writing about

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_02]: what happened, I don't think Katherine felt threatened by Florence because she

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_02]: could, she's elderly, she's old, she doesn't remember.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But Gerard's a different story.

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard's younger.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a good witness.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You have to try to discredit him and as weird and incredible as it sounds,

[00:47:31] [SPEAKER_02]: we believe that this attempt to frame him for stealing her mailbox was that

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_02]: effort to get a felony conviction.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason we believe that is she tried it before.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_02]: He had been arrested in 2011 for getting into an argument with a neighbor.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_02]: He had gotten over an argument about a parking spot that he needed,

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_02]: that he wanted for Florence to help her get into the house and the

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_02]: neighbor kept parking there.

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So he had actually gone onto their porch, which was screened in to argue

[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_02]: with the neighbor about parking in that spot.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you open the door to a screened porch and you walk into the

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_02]: residence uninvited, that's unauthorized entry into a dwelling.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a crime.

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So he was charged with that crime, but he was given a deferred acceptance

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_02]: of guilt, which every state has a form of, which is basically if you're

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_02]: a first time offender, it's a nonviolent crime and it's kind of

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_02]: understandable, you can get probation and walk it off and you have no

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_02]: conviction.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So in 2011, that has happened and he was given a deferred acceptance of

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_02]: guilt, but Catherine had tried to overturn that.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_02]: She had tried to get the judge to reverse his decision and reinstate

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_02]: a felony conviction.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_02]: The judge didn't do it.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So the mailbox theft was her second attempt to try to get him a

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_02]: felony conviction.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just amazing.

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And surely just the idea that she is stealing money from this 93 year

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_03]: old grandmother, that tells us a lot about her.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_03]: But I also thought it was interesting.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_03]: You actually have an itemization of some of the things she spent

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_03]: the money on and there are things like she spent over $25,000 for

[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_03]: a police chief induction brunch at the Sheraton for her husband,

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_03]: car payments for Mercedes Benz and Maserati, a few thousand dollars

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_03]: for concert tickets to Elton John.

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_03]: So she was really using her grandmother's money that she'd

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_03]: build up through a lifetime just to fund these luxuries.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty astonishing.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And what's really astonishing about it is these are two people who

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_02]: are city and county employees.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_02]: They live in this home in Kahala, one of the richest neighborhoods

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_02]: in Hawaii.

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They have two other homes.

[00:49:55] [SPEAKER_02]: They have a Mercedes she's driving and Maserati and they're spending

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_02]: $25,000 of their own money on a ceremonial breakfast after he's

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_02]: named chief of police.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You think someone's going to be saying where are they getting

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_02]: their money from?

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_02]: But no one did.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_02]: No one said anything.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the really bizarre facts that later came out of this

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_02]: was that she was also spending that money on a boyfriend.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_02]: She later was discovered that she was having an affair with this

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_02]: very handsome, hunky fireman from the big island who was on one

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_02]: of those firemen calendars.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And she was paying for his car payments.

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_02]: She went on trips to Vegas with him.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what later happened when the feds were following the

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_02]: money, which is how they get a lot of drug dealers and a

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_02]: lot of scam artists, is they were following where the money

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_02]: was spent and they uncovered that aspect of the case.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Like a bad soap opera.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_03]: So, meanwhile, the case is moving closer to trial and you

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_03]: expect that you're beginning a chance to cross-examine these

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_03]: people on the stand.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious, how do you prepare for cross-examinations?

[00:51:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I think in the book you say your cross-exam notes are more

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_03]: like a Jackson Pollock painting than a finally prepared

[00:51:14] [SPEAKER_02]: script.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, one, because I've done a lot of trials, I'm used

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_02]: to getting ready and preparing.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody has their own system.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_02]: If any lawyer tells you that there's one system or the

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_02]: right system, there are all these books out there telling

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_02]: you how to be a lawyer, how to prepare examinations.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And quite honestly, every examination is different.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Every examination is unique to you as an attorney and what

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_02]: you feel comfortable with.

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, I never write down specific questions.

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to be free to ad-lib because answers witnesses give

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_02]: you lead you down a different path and you got to be ready

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_02]: for that.

[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't be wedded to a script.

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So what I do is I write down concepts, you know, and I

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_02]: write down connections to documents so I can refer to

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_02]: them, but I write down concepts I want to cross-examine

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_02]: them about.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when I'm up there cross-examining, it's very

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_02]: loose and very free for me to go anywhere I want.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It suits me.

[00:52:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't suit other lawyers, but I'm used to it.

[00:52:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So I actually teach a law school class on doing trials

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and I show them my preparation sheets and they're

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_02]: a mess.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_02]: They're arrows and yellow markings and this and that.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And they look at them and they go, what is this?

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And I go, those are my notes.

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Those are my cross-examination notes.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I can follow them.

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't mean anybody else can.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had, you know, one of the big things that we

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_02]: had uncovered in preparing for this was there was

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_02]: when items are recovered by police, they have to be

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_02]: inventoried and that's a very important thing.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you find drugs, you've got somebody

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_02]: inventories it, puts a log of who handles it, where

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_02]: it was found.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_02]: If anybody comes to handle it again, they have to

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_02]: sign into this log.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a cop who's assigned to do that.

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, we had recovered, you know, at

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_02]: part of the investigation, we had given been given

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_02]: those logs.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And normally when I look at those logs, I spend

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_02]: 10 seconds because it's nothing, you know, it's

[00:53:21] [SPEAKER_02]: just the usual inventory.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_02]: But the importance of this type of log can be seen

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_02]: in the OJ Simpson case, you know, where

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_02]: allegedly these gloves that had bloody gloves

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_02]: that had OJ Simpson's DNA were mishandled, according

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to the law and allegedly a racist cop had gotten

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_02]: hold of the gloves and could have, according to

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_02]: the defense, dropped his blood on it with the

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_02]: DNA.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But because they had mishandled those gloves,

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_02]: it was the jury didn't believe that that was

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_02]: credible evidence.

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So these logs are really important to show that

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: nothing's been tampered with.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, in this case, if you remember, Catherine

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_02]: calls 911 at 1 28 in the afternoon of June 13th.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's when the case starts.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But according to the evidence log by the

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence technician who kept it, he recovered

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_02]: the hard drive with the evidence of the

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_02]: surveillance tape and 8 59 that morning of June

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_02]: 22nd, four and a half hours before Catherine

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_02]: calls 911.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I've heard a great police work.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But how do you recover evidence of a crime

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_02]: that's never even been reported?

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So that was another huge piece of evidence

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_02]: that showed us that nothing was being handled

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_02]: correctly in this case and that this was a

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_02]: frame up.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to ask you when it comes to trial

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_01]: about Louis K.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Aloha's testimony, what what ended up

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_01]: happening with what he said on the stand?

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_02]: In a criminal trial, the government up until

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_02]: the weekend before trial doesn't even have to

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_02]: tell us who the witnesses are.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we can surmise, but they don't have

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_02]: to give us a witness list until literally

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_02]: the weekend before trial.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Trial starts on a Tuesday, so we didn't

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_02]: get a witness list until that weekend.

[00:55:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We knew, of course, Catherine and Louis

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_02]: were going to be on the witness list and

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_02]: we need we knew Officer Silva, who was the

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_02]: custodian of records, was going to be

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there to play the tape that he had

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_02]: recovered.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But we didn't really know who else was

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_02]: going to be a witness.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And they don't have to give us a

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_02]: witness list either, so we don't know

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_02]: what order anybody's going to be called

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_02]: in. So you really have to be prepared

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_02]: for anything.

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, over the years, you can get a

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_02]: good sense from doing trials who might

[00:55:45] [SPEAKER_02]: be there, but you don't know for sure.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We had thought that after Officer Silva

[00:55:51] [SPEAKER_02]: testified and introduced the surveillance

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_02]: footage, that it was going to be

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine Kailoa as the next witness.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_02]: But instead, Louis Kailoa shows up as

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_02]: being the second witness.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we had ordered and gotten both

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_02]: mailboxes, the Gaines mailbox and the

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Solar Group mailbox, and they were

[00:56:13] [SPEAKER_02]: hidden under our table.

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_02]: We had told the government, as we

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_02]: were required to do under law, that

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_02]: we had physical evidence we were going

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_02]: to use at trial, but they never

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_02]: bothered to come see it.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they were so convinced this

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_02]: was an open and shut case that

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_02]: didn't even bother to come see what

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence we had.

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So they didn't know what we had.

[00:56:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, the Kailoa was

[00:56:33] [SPEAKER_02]: relying to them, so they didn't

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_02]: know anything was fishy.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had actually hidden the

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_02]: mailboxes under our desk in the

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_02]: trial in cardboard boxes so no

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_02]: one could see them.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And so what we had expected to do

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_02]: was when Catherine Kailoa took the

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_02]: stand to confront her with the

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_02]: mailboxes because we had her

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_02]: statement so we could really hit

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_02]: her. And that would, as far as we

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_02]: were concerned, with the videotape

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_02]: that wasn't clear and with her

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_02]: lying about the mailbox and us

[00:57:00] [SPEAKER_02]: proving it with all these props,

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_02]: that we could really destroy her

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_02]: credibility and the case right

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_02]: off the bat.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But she didn't take the stand.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Louis took the stand, which seemed

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_02]: a little bit out of order and a

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_02]: little odd to us.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So in on direct examination, in

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_02]: any case, a witness on direct

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_02]: has been prepped by the

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_02]: government or by whichever side is

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_02]: calling her.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But in this case, the government.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So the witness knows every

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: question the prosecutor is going

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to ask of them and every answer

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_02]: they're supposed to give.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_02]: They've gone through it.

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_02]: They've rehearsed it.

[00:57:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And the beginning of any direct

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_02]: examination is kind of a

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_02]: foundational laying of who they

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_02]: are, their educational history,

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_02]: their police record.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it just goes through

[00:57:43] [SPEAKER_02]: this litany of, you know, kind

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_02]: of getting the jury to know who

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_02]: they are before they even start

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_02]: talking about anything to do with

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_02]: the case.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So when Louis took the stand, I

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_02]: was kind of sitting back in my

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_02]: chair.

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_02]: The court had just been

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_02]: remodeled.

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So it had these beautiful new

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_02]: chairs that you could lay

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_02]: really far back on.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was laying back kind of

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_02]: not listening too much because

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_02]: he's going through his pedigree

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_02]: and I'm trying to think, well,

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_02]: what are we going to do now?

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Am I going to use the mailbox

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_02]: with Louis?

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Am I not?

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Am I going to hold him if I

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_02]: hold them and they don't put

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine on the stand?

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02]: What am I going to use them?

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm kind of trying to

[00:58:17] [SPEAKER_02]: figure out what my strategy is

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_02]: going to be.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And Louis up there talking about

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_02]: how he had been a cop for so

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_02]: many years and he was now the

[00:58:25] [SPEAKER_02]: chief and he had trained other

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: officers on how to testify.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_02]: He holds training sessions

[00:58:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and, you know, he's this big

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_02]: wig.

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he starts talking

[00:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: about the case a little bit,

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_02]: about Juana's knowledge of

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_02]: their residence because

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Juard, when they were friendly,

[00:58:40] [SPEAKER_02]: had helped remodel their

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_02]: house.

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So he was laying the

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_02]: foundation of how well Juard

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_02]: knew his way around the

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_02]: residence when he was asked a

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_02]: simple question.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And the question simply was,

[00:58:52] [SPEAKER_02]: what did Juard look like in

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_02]: 2013 as opposed to now sitting

[00:58:56] [SPEAKER_02]: in court in 2014?

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Because according to the

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_02]: government, Juard had gained

[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_02]: some weight.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So he didn't, he certainly

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_02]: didn't look like this svelte

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_02]: young guy in the videotape.

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they, he, I assume

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_02]: they expected Louis to simply

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_02]: say he was thinner, he was

[00:59:13] [SPEAKER_02]: younger, he was more spry,

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_02]: so forth.

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And Louis began to answer that

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_02]: question in that way.

[00:59:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he stopped and paused

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was a definite pause.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And when you're in a trial,

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_02]: when someone pauses,

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_02]: it's noticeable because the

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_02]: entire courtroom is silent.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's looking at Louis

[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and then he says he looks

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_02]: just like he did in his

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_02]: police photograph when he was

[00:59:37] [SPEAKER_02]: arrested for burglarizing

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_02]: his neighbor's house.

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_02]: That is an entirely improper

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_02]: answer that cannot be given.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you want to use

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_02]: a prior bad act of a defendant,

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_02]: you have to give notice.

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_02]: We have to litigate whether

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_02]: it's proper or not.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_02]: All of this is done before

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_02]: trial.

[00:59:54] [SPEAKER_02]: None of that happened.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And referring to a police

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_02]: photo, you know, arrest

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_02]: photo for a crime that he

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: didn't even commit because

[01:00:01] [SPEAKER_02]: one, it wasn't a

[01:00:01] [SPEAKER_02]: burglary, but two, he got

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_02]: a dag.

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're not allowed by law

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_02]: to even mention it because

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_02]: it's not a conviction.

[01:00:07] [SPEAKER_02]: That was entirely improper.

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Now the funny thing was he

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_02]: answers it that way.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And as I said, I'm leaning

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_02]: way back in my chair and

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_02]: it was totally unexpected.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And it took a second or two to

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_02]: register to me what he had

[01:00:22] [SPEAKER_02]: just done.

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So I had to get forward

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_02]: to stand up and object.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And in doing that, I

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_02]: actually had to pull myself

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_02]: up from the desk.

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And in doing that, I

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_02]: slammed my hand on the

[01:00:32] [SPEAKER_02]: desk, which everybody

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_02]: thought was, you know, wow,

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_02]: this big slam on the desk

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_02]: echoing through the courtroom.

[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I stood up and

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_02]: objected.

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_02]: The reality was I was just

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_02]: trying to get myself up.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But I objected and asked

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_02]: for a mistrial saying

[01:00:47] [SPEAKER_02]: that was improper.

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And eventually that's exactly

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_02]: what the court did, was

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: declare a mistrial.

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But a mistrial doesn't

[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_02]: end the case.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It simply says we're

[01:00:58] [SPEAKER_02]: going to start over with

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_02]: a new jury that hasn't

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_02]: heard this evidence.

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So the trial was rescheduled

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_02]: for several months later,

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I think in April of 2015.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: This may call for some

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: speculation, but I mean,

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: this man is a was a

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: police chief, had just

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: been talking about how he's

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: trained other people on

[01:01:18] testifying.

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Why would he why

[01:01:21] [SPEAKER_01]: would he do that?

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Why would why would he

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: basically throw this

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: into a mistrial like

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: that? Because it certainly

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_01]: from the outside seems

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: very intentional.

[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. I certainly felt

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_02]: it was intentional.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I think everybody in

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_02]: the courtroom felt it

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: was intentional.

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't prove that,

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_02]: of course.

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But one of the reasons

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I believed it was

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_02]: intentional was during

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: our investigation,

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_02]: we had uncovered some

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: incredibly damning

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence against Catherine

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Kailua, his wife.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The Kailua's had litigated

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_02]: that issue of whether

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I would be allowed to

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: cross examiner on this

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence that I had

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: uncovered that had to do

[01:01:58] [SPEAKER_02]: with her mental health.

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_02]: They litigated this issue

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and tried to stop me

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and tried to convince

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the court that I shouldn't

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: be allowed to do it.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: They even appealed all

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_02]: the way to the Ninth

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Circuit Court of Appeals

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_02]: trying to stop me from

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_02]: using it.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And the court said,

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: no, Mr.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Silbert, if she takes

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_02]: a stand, is going

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: to be allowed to

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: cross examine her on

[01:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: this evidence.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't talk about

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_02]: what it is.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm under a gag order

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: even to this day.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't say

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: what it is.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But the Kailua's

[01:02:25] [SPEAKER_02]: knew what it was

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and it would have

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_02]: been devastating.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And so to me,

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: the reason Louis

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: took the stand before

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine and the

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_02]: reason he threw

[01:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: the trial before

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine could be

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: called as a witness

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: was to stop that

[01:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: from happening.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_02]: That's my personal opinion.

[01:02:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, as you noted,

[01:02:46] [SPEAKER_03]: a mistrial doesn't

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_03]: end the case.

[01:02:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So after the mistrial,

[01:02:50] [SPEAKER_03]: you actually,

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_03]: you and your team

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_03]: decide to meet

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_03]: with the prosecutors

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and share the evidence

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_03]: you have.

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_03]: What made you decide

[01:03:00] [SPEAKER_03]: to do that?

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And what was that

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_03]: meeting like?

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You know,

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: PDs and US

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: attorneys are not friends.

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You know,

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: we battle each other

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_02]: every day.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we may

[01:03:11] [SPEAKER_02]: professionally get along,

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: but we're not

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_02]: friendly with another.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't usually cooperate

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: with one another.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't trust one another.

[01:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But what had happened

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_02]: was, you know,

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_02]: after my opening statement

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and after I had

[01:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: filed my witness list

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and after I had

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: filed my exhibit list,

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: if the government

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_02]: had five months

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to really delve

[01:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: into that and examine it,

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that they might try

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: to change their nature

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_02]: of their case

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: or convince witnesses

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to change their testimony

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: or whatever.

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was a real risk.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So we decided

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was agonizing

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_02]: because my entire office

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and my Peter Wolf,

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: who was head of the office,

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: we met for days

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: deciding what it was.

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_02]: What's our course of action?

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: What should we do?

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Should we really trust

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: the government prosecutors?

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had decided

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: based upon what had happened

[01:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: at trial and the evidence

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_02]: we had uncovered

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: that the US attorneys

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_02]: actually had been hoodwinked

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: that they had no idea

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_02]: what was going on.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And we decided, OK,

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_02]: we're going to have a meeting

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: and can and try to show them

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: all the evidence

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: we had uncovered.

[01:04:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So we did have that meeting.

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It didn't at first.

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't sure

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_02]: if it went really well,

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: but we had such amazing

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_02]: damning evidence

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_02]: that I just couldn't see

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: how they could

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_02]: not look at it.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And US attorneys

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_02]: don't like to lose.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they shouldn't lose.

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't have

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to bring criminal charges.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They can always negotiate

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: a plea if they don't

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_02]: if they think there's

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_02]: a problem with their case.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They should never lose

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and they don't like to lose.

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So certainly we had a case

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: where they were going to lose.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But I wasn't sure

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: how far they would take it.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And we didn't just want them

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: to dismiss the case.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We had decided

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_02]: that Gerard Pawana

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and Florence Pawana

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: needed to be exonerated.

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Their names needed to be cleared,

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: which is different

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_02]: from being found not guilty.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Not guilty just means

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_02]: the government failed.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't mean

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: they're not guilty of a crime.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And they had been framed.

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard had been framed

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and we wanted

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that to be clear.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So we presented

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: all this evidence

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: to the US attorney

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: and at the end of the meeting,

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Larry Tong, who was one

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: of the prosecutors

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: who we really did trust,

[01:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: said to us, what do you want?

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we said

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_02]: we want the case to Smith

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: with prejudice,

[01:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: which means it can't come back.

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And he was like, OK,

[01:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll talk to my boss about that.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And then he was about

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_02]: ready to leave.

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, no, no, we're not done.

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We said we want you

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: to ask the FBI

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_02]: to investigate the K.

[01:05:30] Lois.

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: That he wasn't used

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: to hearing from us.

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And we were very adamant

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and we were basically saying,

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: look, we have all this evidence.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: We believe they framed him.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you don't go to the FBI

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and do this,

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: we're going to present

[01:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: this evidence to the public

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and ask the question,

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: why won't the FBI investigate

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: their fellow law enforcement

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: officers when it clearly looks

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: like they framed an innocent man?

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, after that meeting,

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: we waited for the weekend

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_02]: in a couple of days.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And to our amazement,

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: we were told the case

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_02]: was going to be dismissed

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: with prejudice

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and the US attorney

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_02]: was going to refer the case

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_02]: to the FBI for further investigation.

[01:06:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it means like a huge coup,

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: obviously.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But at that point, I'm curious,

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, as a federal defender,

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: what had been your experience

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: with the FBI?

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And were you confident

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: that they were going

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: to take a very serious look

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_01]: at what had happened here?

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if our relationship

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: with the US attorney was bad,

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: our relationship with the FBI

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: is much worse because

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: we actually cross examine FBI agents

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: on a regular basis

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and attack their credibility,

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_02]: attack whether they violated

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: the Constitution or not

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_02]: by their searches.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We are we are not friends at all.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We really dislike each other.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was very evident

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: when we had our meeting

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: with the FBI

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_02]: of that relationship.

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I had insisted upon

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: of why the US attorney

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: had to make the referral

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_02]: to the FBI was because

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_02]: even though anybody can call

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the FBI and make a complaint,

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: like I could have called the FBI

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and said, look, you know,

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: here's this complaint.

[01:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to listen to me.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just some, you know,

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: wacky defense attorney

[01:07:15] [SPEAKER_02]: trying to muddy up

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and dirty good

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_02]: law enforcement officers.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But if the US attorney

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: makes the recommendation,

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: they have to pay attention,

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: which is why we were insisting

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that it go that way.

[01:07:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So we did eventually meet

[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: with the two FBI agents

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and that meeting at first

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: did not go well at all

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: because of our

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_02]: distrustful relationship.

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: When they came into the room

[01:07:37] [SPEAKER_02]: to meet with us,

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: they wouldn't even shake our hands.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It was clear to us.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It appeared at least

[01:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: that they had drawn

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_02]: the short end of the straw

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and were forced to come

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and listen to us.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But they were happy

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: about being there.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't really believe

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_02]: we had any evidence.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And they told us that basically

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: in the start of the meeting.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Who is Michael Wheat?

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us about him

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_03]: and his involvement in this case.

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_02]: After this meeting

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: with the FBI, when it ended,

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: we had really shown them

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: how even the mailbox

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_02]: had been rigged to come off

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_02]: the way it did in the videotape.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was clear

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: that we had won them over.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But we still didn't trust them.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was still concerned

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: that they weren't

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_02]: really going to do anything

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were going to take

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: walk away with all our evidence

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and bury it.

[01:08:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So at the end of the meeting,

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I had told them that

[01:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: we would give them three months

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and then we'd want to know

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_02]: what was going on.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were like, no,

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, this is our investigation now.

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll take as long as we want.

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, no,

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I've done the legwork here.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to do much

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_02]: except for start

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: interrogating people.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: At least that was my pitch.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I want to

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I want to report in three months.

[01:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, we're going

[01:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to go to the press again

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_02]: and say you have the case

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_02]: and you've done nothing.

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So in the end,

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: what happened was we waited

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and after three months

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I made a call

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_02]: because I hadn't heard anything

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and they didn't respond

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and they didn't respond.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So I felt, oh, here we go.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: They're freezing us out.

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But then after multiple calls,

[01:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: an agent called me back.

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the agents

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: who had come and said,

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, I can't talk to you

[01:09:09] [SPEAKER_02]: about an ongoing investigation,

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: which is their usual line.

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, no,

[01:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: that's not the deal here.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know,

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and I said, if I don't hear anybody

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: from anybody

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: at the end of the day,

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to the press.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, later that day,

[01:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I got a call from Michael Wheat

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: and Michael Wheat

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: was a U.S. attorney

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: in San Diego.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He worked for the San Diego

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: U.S. Attorney's Office.

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And he tells us

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: that he had been assigned

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: by Attorney General Holder

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: as a special prosecutor,

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: just like the Watergate

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and, you know,

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and special prosecutor

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: or the Trump investigators.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And he had been assigned

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: to come to Hawaii

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and investigate this case.

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And he had been doing that

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: for months now.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And he reached out to us,

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, because of my phone call

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_02]: to tell us that this was going on.

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I asked him eventually,

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, what's going on

[01:09:58] [SPEAKER_02]: and what are you doing?

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And he said,

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I took this case

[01:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: because I think it needs to be

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: run to the ground

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: that I'm going to run

[01:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: this evidence to the ground,

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: which is the sweetest words

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I've ever heard

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: coming from a prosecutor,

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, and coming

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: from a defense attorney

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: who really is suspect

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: of prosecutors his entire life.

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, this was great

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_02]: because, you know,

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_02]: he sounded like

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: a very serious prosecutor.

[01:10:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He's appointed

[01:10:21] [SPEAKER_02]: by the attorney general

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_02]: and he's not going to let this go.

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So eventually Mr.

[01:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Wheat is the one

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_02]: who took over the entire investigation.

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: He's still here.

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It's 2024.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: He is still here

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_02]: investigating and prosecuting

[01:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: related cases to what we uncovered.

[01:10:39] [SPEAKER_02]: He's indicted three other cases

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: of high government officials

[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: related to this.

[01:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And he ended up in 2019

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_02]: charging and indicting

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: the KALOAS

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and four other police officers

[01:10:54] [SPEAKER_02]: with violating our clients

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: civil rights

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and taking them to trial.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to return to that in a moment

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: because essentially

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: your investigation kick started

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: a chain of dominoes

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: that has, you know, as you mentioned,

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: still has reverberations today.

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to ask in the meantime,

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: you mentioned you're this

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: longtime defense attorney

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and then suddenly you're a witness

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_01]: in this 2017 trial.

[01:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: What was that experience like?

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So in 2017, the KALOAS are indicted.

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: 2019 is the trial,

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: which lasts more than a month

[01:11:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and a half, two months almost.

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And I did become

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_02]: the 37th witness, I believe,

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: in the case for the prosecution,

[01:11:36] [SPEAKER_02]: which is very strange.

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, as a lawyer,

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: you're never a witness to a crime.

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You're not a witness to anything.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: You're just the defense attorney.

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So I had never been a witness

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_02]: in a case at all, much less now

[01:11:48] [SPEAKER_02]: a witness for the prosecution,

[01:11:50] [SPEAKER_02]: which really inside me,

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm horrid.

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's horrible.

[01:11:55] [SPEAKER_02]: But I really felt that these people

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_02]: had framed an innocent man

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were the top

[01:12:01] [SPEAKER_02]: law enforcement officials of our island.

[01:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: You shouldn't get away with this.

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_02]: This is wrong.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So while part of me

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_02]: cringed at being a represent

[01:12:11] [SPEAKER_02]: than a witness for the prosecution,

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: the other part of me was like, no,

[01:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: these people deserve to be prosecuted.

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_03]: The jury actually

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_03]: reached a pretty quick verdict

[01:12:22] [SPEAKER_03]: and the KALOAS,

[01:12:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Catherine was sentenced to 13 years,

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Louis was sentenced to seven years.

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Did people feel this was a just sentence?

[01:12:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of people felt

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the sentences were low,

[01:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: especially for Catherine KALOAS,

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: because not only did she plead guilty to,

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, did she get found guilty

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: by a jury to the civil rights violations

[01:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and obstruction of justice,

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: but she had also been charged

[01:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: during Wheat's investigation with bank fraud.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so had Louis KALOAS,

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_02]: because they had misappropriated money,

[01:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: not only from Jouard,

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_02]: but they found from other people,

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: other family members and had gotten bank loans.

[01:13:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine had gotten bank loans

[01:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: based upon misrepresenting

[01:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: the money that she had in her account,

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: using actually fraudulent bank statements

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: from other people's bank

[01:13:10] [SPEAKER_02]: accounts to get those loans.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so both KALOAS

[01:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: had been charged with bank fraud,

[01:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: which they ended up pleading guilty to.

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine was charged

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: with a third set of crimes

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_02]: of helping cover up

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: her brother's drug dealing.

[01:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Her brother was a doctor from the Big Island,

[01:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and he had prescribed illegally fentanyl

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: prescriptions to people who illegally

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and she had actually covered up

[01:13:34] [SPEAKER_02]: investigations that would have uncovered

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_02]: his illegal drug

[01:13:38] [SPEAKER_02]: dealing from his prescription writing.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And so she was charged with that crime

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and it pled guilty to that as well.

[01:13:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So when she went to sentencing,

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: she was actually facing

[01:13:48] [SPEAKER_02]: three different charges.

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was clear from the case

[01:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that the driving force behind this was Catherine.

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It was not Louis.

[01:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think Louis actually had anything

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: to do with the initial concept

[01:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: of having framing Jouard

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: for the mailbox theft,

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: but he certainly jumped in both feet

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: when he found out what had happened

[01:14:07] [SPEAKER_02]: and tried to cover up for Catherine.

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So everybody thought

[01:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine should have gotten more

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and Louis got eight years, which,

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, the way I look at it,

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_02]: look, I'm still a defense attorney.

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't believe in the prison system.

[01:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's wrong.

[01:14:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it treats people well.

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you have people

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: who are in their 50s and 60s

[01:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and they were in their 50s at the time

[01:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: serving such a lengthy prison time,

[01:14:31] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, to me, that's enough.

[01:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to ask you about Florence

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and Jouard and what happened to them?

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, as all this ultimately came out,

[01:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: how did that impact them?

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And can you just talk about what happened to them?

[01:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the saddest things

[01:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: about this whole case is, of course, Florence.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: As we as we talked about,

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: the reverse mortgage was never paid off.

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And so in 2013,

[01:14:59] [SPEAKER_02]: in September of 2013,

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: as this case was going on,

[01:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: she actually had to sell her home

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: because she couldn't

[01:15:05] [SPEAKER_02]: she was going to lose it.

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And she had no recourse,

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: but to try to sell it

[01:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and at least cover her debt.

[01:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So she was forced at the age of 95

[01:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: to move into a literally

[01:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: one and a half bedroom apartment

[01:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: with her daughter and with Jouard

[01:15:23] [SPEAKER_02]: during the rest of the remaining part of her life.

[01:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: She all she wanted

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: was an apology from Catherine.

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She still loved her.

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_02]: She just didn't understand why she did this.

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And in my interview of her, that's all she wanted.

[01:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: She just wanted to know why.

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: She would have done this to her own grandmother.

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And she lived to a hundred.

[01:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: She she was alive during the verdict

[01:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: where they were found guilty.

[01:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And then she had her hundredth birthday,

[01:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: which was incredibly well attended.

[01:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And even the press was there

[01:15:54] [SPEAKER_02]: because now this case was huge.

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And she died shortly after her hundredth birthday.

[01:16:01] [SPEAKER_02]: She never got the apology

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that she was looking for,

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the understanding of why.

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But even worse than all of that.

[01:16:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that really makes us just horrifying

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: is that that civil lawsuit

[01:16:15] [SPEAKER_02]: that she had filed went to trial in February of 2015.

[01:16:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So literally two months after our case was declared

[01:16:23] [SPEAKER_02]: a mistrial and was dismissed,

[01:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: the civil trial still was on track.

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And it went to trial in front of a state jury.

[01:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine took the stand

[01:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: and just lied her entire the entire time.

[01:16:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine's a very credible witness.

[01:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there was nothing to impeach her with.

[01:16:40] [SPEAKER_02]: She comes across very nice.

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I spoke to a number of people

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: who said she was the nicest person they ever met.

[01:16:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And she took the stand and she just lied.

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And not only did the jury rule

[01:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: against Florence Pauwana and Gerard,

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: they ruled in favor of Catherine for defamation,

[01:16:58] [SPEAKER_02]: awarded her six hundred thousand dollars

[01:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: plus attorney's fees.

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So not only did the Florence not recoup

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_02]: the money that she that Catherine stole,

[01:17:08] [SPEAKER_02]: she had to pay Catherine and her lawyers over seven hundred thousand dollars.

[01:17:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, it took years.

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But after the Kalos were convicted

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was proven that Catherine had lied

[01:17:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and therefore had committed a fraud upon the court,

[01:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: the appellate court in Hawaii overturned the civil judgment.

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was nullified.

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But the fact that it was nullified didn't rectify what happened to Florence.

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: She never got her money back.

[01:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She didn't recoup the money that was stolen or her home.

[01:17:36] [SPEAKER_02]: She just didn't have to pay

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_02]: the money that the jury found in favor of Catherine.

[01:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, for Florence, it was a devastating set of events.

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's why we fought so hard and we still are fighting

[01:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to get the story out to prove that they were that, you know,

[01:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Gerard should be exonerated.

[01:17:55] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't a technical error that he was found not guilty.

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And that Florence really what really happened to Florence.

[01:18:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious. You mentioned Weed is still out there working.

[01:18:07] [SPEAKER_03]: What's the legacy of this case and in Hawaii?

[01:18:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Have any steps been taken to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again?

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So we did charge Catherine's brother, the doctor,

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: with writing illegal prescriptions.

[01:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He was convicted at trial.

[01:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: He got seven and a half years.

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: There was another trial involving

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_02]: information he had found out, but wasn't directly related

[01:18:30] [SPEAKER_02]: to the Kaolik case that recently went to trial.

[01:18:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's another trial pending in March

[01:18:36] [SPEAKER_02]: against some high level city officials, because when Louie

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: this story just gets more bizarre as I talk about it.

[01:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: When Louie was indicted, but not convicted, but indicted,

[01:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, he's chief of police.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It was an embarrassment to the entire city and county of Honolulu.

[01:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And they wanted him to leave, but he wouldn't.

[01:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: He wouldn't give up his post.

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So in order to get him to, quote unquote, retire,

[01:19:00] [SPEAKER_02]: the city allowed him to retire in good standing,

[01:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: which means he gets his pension for the rest of his life.

[01:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But they also paid him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: extra just as incentive for him to retire.

[01:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So now there's a criminal case pending

[01:19:18] [SPEAKER_02]: against the city officials who paid him the two hundred

[01:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and fifty thousand dollars, alleging that the way they funneled

[01:19:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that money to him was improper under city and state law.

[01:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's pending.

[01:19:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The legacy of Mr.

[01:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: We really is and this case is that before the Kailua case,

[01:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: no one was really looking into corruption within law enforcement

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_02]: or within city and county or government officials in Hawaii.

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we live in a small insulated state.

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody knows everybody.

[01:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, bringing these kinds of cases is difficult.

[01:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But because of the Kailua case and what has happened,

[01:19:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's been now an influx of these types

[01:20:00] [SPEAKER_02]: of prosecutions being brought forward.

[01:20:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are a number of them that have come forward with city

[01:20:05] [SPEAKER_02]: permit inspectors who were taking bribes and other people.

[01:20:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So it kind of opened the door.

[01:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't take credit for those cases, but this case

[01:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: opened the door to those types of prosecutions.

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: There's been a movement within state and local government

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: to have ethics rules enforced,

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to change criminal laws, to make it more serious for white

[01:20:27] [SPEAKER_02]: collar crime corruption cases.

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: There's been a commission instigated under state law

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_02]: to inform the legislature of how they can improve their ethics

[01:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: and their laws related to this.

[01:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's been step forwards

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and that we're all still fighting for better steps forward.

[01:20:45] [SPEAKER_02]: There were no term limits on the city prosecutor.

[01:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Term limits were imposed.

[01:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So things have happened, but unfortunately, there's been

[01:20:53] [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of pushback by the government where as we try to

[01:20:57] [SPEAKER_02]: push forward, they push back and they try to depict this

[01:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: as a few bad apples as opposed to a systemic set of corruption.

[01:21:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And unfortunately, in many levels of state government,

[01:21:11] [SPEAKER_02]: there has been no change whatsoever.

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to sound like some mainlander

[01:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: criticizing Hawaii unduly because as we know, public

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: corruption exists all over the place.

[01:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But it really seems like there was something very

[01:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: intrinsically wrong here where not only was a top

[01:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: prosecutor and the police chief doing this, but others

[01:21:35] [SPEAKER_01]: were helping them or looking the other way and it didn't

[01:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: occur to anyone that maybe this is bad and we should

[01:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: stop it until it got to your desk and basically the

[01:21:47] [SPEAKER_01]: whole thing unraveled.

[01:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So I suppose, what about the culture of law enforcement

[01:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: in Hawaii sort of helped lead to this and how has

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_01]: that affected people's view of law enforcement locally?

[01:22:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So Hawaii is somewhat unique because corruption is

[01:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: everywhere as you say.

[01:22:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Hawaii is unique because we live in a very small,

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_02]: geographically isolated island and everybody knows

[01:22:17] [SPEAKER_02]: everybody.

[01:22:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I like to say that in these large families that

[01:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: we have here, half of them are cops and half of

[01:22:25] [SPEAKER_02]: them are criminals.

[01:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just all the way it goes.

[01:22:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't help yourself.

[01:22:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And we have this low level kind of corruption where

[01:22:33] [SPEAKER_02]: if a chicken fight is going to be raided one night,

[01:22:36] [SPEAKER_02]: a local cop might call their uncle and say, hey,

[01:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: uncle, don't go to the chicken fight because it's

[01:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: going to be raided.

[01:22:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We have that in small time stuff.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But as you said here, there was no question and

[01:22:49] [SPEAKER_02]: we know that the KLA was couldn't have gotten

[01:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: away with this without a number of people both

[01:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: in law enforcement and lawyers who worked with

[01:22:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine knowing something was going on or

[01:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: suspecting something was going on.

[01:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody turned the other way.

[01:23:04] [SPEAKER_02]: No one came forward.

[01:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: No one said anything.

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We now are calling that non-criminal corruption

[01:23:11] [SPEAKER_02]: here where these people weren't involved in

[01:23:13] [SPEAKER_02]: anything criminal, but they kind of knew what

[01:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: was going on.

[01:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They should have said something.

[01:23:17] [SPEAKER_02]: They could have said something.

[01:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: This wouldn't have happened if they had come

[01:23:20] [SPEAKER_02]: forward and they didn't.

[01:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I spoke to a number of attorneys who knew

[01:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Catherine when I was prepping to cross

[01:23:27] [SPEAKER_02]: examiner because when you cross examine a

[01:23:29] [SPEAKER_02]: witness, you want to find out about them and

[01:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: what they're like and what might set them off

[01:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: and things like that.

[01:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I had talked to a number of attorneys

[01:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and they had a lot of them had talked about

[01:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: how she was a great person and so likable of

[01:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: my wife, who's a judge had had her appear in

[01:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: front of her and said she's the nicest person

[01:23:45] [SPEAKER_02]: she ever met.

[01:23:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But other attorneys were telling me these

[01:23:49] [SPEAKER_02]: horrible stories of unethical behavior that

[01:23:52] [SPEAKER_02]: she was involved with but had never come

[01:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: forward and had never told anybody this

[01:23:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and had never reported her over the years.

[01:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And so there is this unfortunate sense of

[01:24:04] [SPEAKER_02]: community that says you kind of get along,

[01:24:07] [SPEAKER_02]: you keep quiet.

[01:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you speak out too much,

[01:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: you're the nail that gets hammered down.

[01:24:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's unfortunate.

[01:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we've tried to address it.

[01:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: We have a new police chief who's trying

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_02]: to rectify issues in the police

[01:24:21] [SPEAKER_02]: department. But this has been a stain on

[01:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: local law enforcement in Hawaii for years.

[01:24:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We are now into our second second police

[01:24:29] [SPEAKER_02]: chief since Louie and they're still

[01:24:33] [SPEAKER_02]: working on it.

[01:24:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're still trying to restore trust

[01:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: in the local police department.

[01:24:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you've been very, very generous

[01:24:40] [SPEAKER_03]: with your time.

[01:24:41] [SPEAKER_03]: But of course, we've just barely scratched

[01:24:44] [SPEAKER_03]: the surface of this story.

[01:24:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And there was plenty of other bizarre

[01:24:48] [SPEAKER_03]: details. Your book on this is incredible

[01:24:53] [SPEAKER_03]: reading. I was the first one of us to

[01:24:55] [SPEAKER_03]: read it. I was reading it when we were

[01:24:57] [SPEAKER_03]: sitting together in a courtroom waiting

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_03]: for murder hearing to begin.

[01:25:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And I kept on nudging on you and

[01:25:02] [SPEAKER_03]: said, get a load of this.

[01:25:03] [SPEAKER_03]: It's amazing.

[01:25:04] [SPEAKER_03]: So I can't recommend the book

[01:25:07] [SPEAKER_03]: highly enough.

[01:25:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Before we wrap up,

[01:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: is there anything we didn't ask you

[01:25:13] [SPEAKER_03]: about that you think our listeners

[01:25:15] [SPEAKER_03]: should know about this case?

[01:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would tell people if they're

[01:25:20] [SPEAKER_02]: going to try to get the book.

[01:25:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a law book.

[01:25:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't be afraid of reading it.

[01:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It's written like a murder mystery novel.

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: You're with me as we uncover the

[01:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: evidence. And the reason I say murder

[01:25:30] [SPEAKER_02]: mystery and not just a mystery novel

[01:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: is because one of the reporter,

[01:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the things that happened in

[01:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: the case was the detectives who

[01:25:36] [SPEAKER_02]: were assigned to investigate the case

[01:25:38] [SPEAKER_02]: were homicide detectives to

[01:25:39] [SPEAKER_02]: investigate a mailbox theft.

[01:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And as one reporter put it,

[01:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: no mailbox was killed in the

[01:25:46] [SPEAKER_02]: commission of the fence.

[01:25:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So we wrote it kind of tongue

[01:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: in cheek as a murder mystery.

[01:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it reads like that.

[01:25:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We tried to make the law

[01:25:54] [SPEAKER_02]: understandable.

[01:25:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And as you said, there's so much

[01:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: more bizarre evidence

[01:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: that we uncovered.

[01:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And I lay all out the investigation.

[01:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I lay out the trial and I

[01:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: lay out the years that it took

[01:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: for Wheat to indict and what

[01:26:09] [SPEAKER_02]: happened at that trial.

[01:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot there to read.

[01:26:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope people will read it.

[01:26:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a really fun read.

[01:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It is a great book,

[01:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's something that I think

[01:26:19] [SPEAKER_01]: people need to read because

[01:26:21] [SPEAKER_01]: understanding how corruption

[01:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: can set in and what it

[01:26:25] [SPEAKER_01]: takes to unroot that, I think,

[01:26:26] [SPEAKER_01]: is important for everyone to know

[01:26:27] [SPEAKER_01]: about.

[01:26:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And that was there were

[01:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: two purposes for the book,

[01:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: one to exonerate the Poanas.

[01:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But secondly, this is

[01:26:35] [SPEAKER_02]: what corruption really looks like

[01:26:37] [SPEAKER_02]: in the real world.

[01:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted people to see it

[01:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: because it's not what you see on

[01:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: television.

[01:26:42] [SPEAKER_02]: This is how it works and how it

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: plays out.

[01:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a great understanding

[01:26:47] [SPEAKER_02]: of.

[01:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: How corruption works in

[01:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: law enforcement, how it plays

[01:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: out. And that was really one of

[01:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: the main purposes of the book.

[01:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. Well, thank you so

[01:26:56] [SPEAKER_01]: much for taking the time to

[01:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: speak with us. We really enjoyed

[01:26:59] [SPEAKER_01]: this conversation and we just

[01:27:00] [SPEAKER_01]: want to express gratitude for

[01:27:01] [SPEAKER_01]: you taking the time for talking

[01:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: about your experience with

[01:27:04] [SPEAKER_01]: this case.

[01:27:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you for having me.

[01:27:06] [SPEAKER_03]: We want to thank Alexander for

[01:27:08] [SPEAKER_03]: taking the time to speak with

[01:27:09] [SPEAKER_03]: us today.

[01:27:10] [SPEAKER_03]: We also want to mention again

[01:27:11] [SPEAKER_03]: how much we enjoyed his

[01:27:13] [SPEAKER_03]: wonderful book on this case.

[01:27:15] [SPEAKER_03]: It is called The Mailbox

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Conspiracy and you can find

[01:27:19] [SPEAKER_03]: it on Amazon.

[01:27:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Normally we don't link to Amazon

[01:27:22] [SPEAKER_01]: on our show anymore, but in this

[01:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: situation the publisher is in

[01:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Hawaii and we thought that that

[01:27:26] [SPEAKER_01]: would be the best method.

[01:27:29] [SPEAKER_03]: You can also find more

[01:27:30] [SPEAKER_03]: information about Alexander

[01:27:32] [SPEAKER_03]: and his work at

[01:27:35] [SPEAKER_03]: themailboxconspiracy.com.

[01:27:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Again, the name of the book

[01:27:38] [SPEAKER_03]: is The Mailbox Conspiracy

[01:27:40] [SPEAKER_03]: and we highly recommend it.

[01:27:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I also wanted to mention that

[01:27:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Alexander was kind enough to

[01:27:46] [SPEAKER_03]: send us links

[01:27:48] [SPEAKER_03]: to a videotaped deposition

[01:27:51] [SPEAKER_03]: given by Florence Puana.

[01:27:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Florence, of course, is

[01:27:55] [SPEAKER_03]: the grandmother who was the

[01:27:57] [SPEAKER_03]: victim of the reverse mortgage

[01:27:59] [SPEAKER_03]: scam that is in many ways

[01:28:01] [SPEAKER_03]: at the heart of this case.

[01:28:03] [SPEAKER_03]: We had thought about including

[01:28:04] [SPEAKER_03]: some excerpts from that

[01:28:05] [SPEAKER_03]: deposition in this episode,

[01:28:07] [SPEAKER_03]: but decided to instead focus

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER_03]: on Alexander's telling of this

[01:28:11] [SPEAKER_03]: story.

[01:28:12] [SPEAKER_03]: We will include links to the

[01:28:13] [SPEAKER_03]: video of the deposition in

[01:28:14] [SPEAKER_03]: our show notes if you're

[01:28:15] [SPEAKER_03]: interested in checking out

[01:28:17] [SPEAKER_03]: what exactly Florence had to

[01:28:19] [SPEAKER_03]: say about this whole mess.

[01:28:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much for listening

[01:28:26] [SPEAKER_03]: to The Murder Sheet.

[01:28:28] [SPEAKER_03]: If you have a tip concerning

[01:28:30] [SPEAKER_03]: one of the cases we cover,

[01:28:32] [SPEAKER_03]: please email us at

[01:28:35] [SPEAKER_03]: murdersheetatgmail.com.

[01:28:37] [SPEAKER_03]: If you have actionable

[01:28:38] [SPEAKER_03]: information about an

[01:28:40] [SPEAKER_03]: unsolved crime,

[01:28:41] [SPEAKER_03]: please report it to the

[01:28:42] [SPEAKER_03]: appropriate authorities.

[01:28:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in

[01:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: joining our Patreon,

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[01:28:55] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to tip us a bit

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[01:29:04] [SPEAKER_01]: slash murder sheet.

[01:29:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We very much appreciate any

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[01:29:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Special thanks to Kevin

[01:29:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Tyler Greenlee, who

[01:29:12] [SPEAKER_03]: composed the music for the

[01:29:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Murder Sheet and who you

[01:29:15] [SPEAKER_03]: can find on the web at

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[01:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're looking to talk

[01:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: with other listeners about

[01:29:22] [SPEAKER_01]: a case we've covered,

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[01:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: We mostly focus our time

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[01:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: so we're not on social

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[01:29:33] [SPEAKER_01]: We do try to check our

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[01:29:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.

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