������Ƶ

An air of desperation emanates from the efforts of Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his city prosecutor wife, Katherine Kealoha, to stop the city Ethics Commission’s investigation of them. Is the possible endpoint of the inquiry so damaging that the couple’s pseudonymously filed lawsuit appears to be the best option available to them?

Maybe.

The Kealohas’ troubles became public when Katherine Kealoha, armed with a surveillance video, accused her uncle, Gerard Puana, of stealing the Kealohas’ home mailbox.

Puana had filed suit three months earlier against his niece for allegedly swindling his elderly mother and him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars — money that he claimed was spent on luxury cars, a swanky hotel event and pricey Elton John concert tickets, among other things.

Puana later lost the lawsuit. He denied the mailbox theft — a prosecutor claimed he was looking for mailed financial documents that could help him prove his allegations. That case ended in a mistrial because of testimony about Puana’s criminal record provided by the police chief himself.

Puana’s former public defender claims to have evidence of obstruction of justice, civil rights violations or both by the Kealohas. And now there’s an FBI investigation of the Kealohas, with a special prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

As family dramas go, this one is epic.

Local defense attorney Marcus Landsberg shared with Civil Beat his on-point take on how the Kealohas should have responded to the Ethics Commission probe: “Normally what you should do is say, ‘I would like the Ethics Commission to investigate me so they can exonerate me of any ethical problems.’”

But that advice only holds if, in fact, this is merely a family drama. “Normally,” a police chief is not accused of abusing his office in investigating his wife’s uncle.

The Kealohas haven’t minced words in defending themselves, with Katherine calling her uncle’s claims “a work of fiction” and Uncle Gerard himself a “ne’er do well” and a “deadbeat.” Given that level of righteous certainty, the Kealohas’ choice to file a lawsuit against the Ethics Commission under the names “Doe” and “Roe” would seem to be counter-productive, at best. But to paraphrase an old saying, where there are pseudonyms, there’s fire.

Misconduct Allegations Nothing New

The current matter unavoidably brings to mind various other investigations involving Police Department officials and a steady stream of allegations of misconduct in matters ranging from tampering with government records to domestic violence to cockfighting.

Those investigations that come to light typically and sometimes inexplicably find no fault or result in no punishment; Civil Beat recently detailed a particularly egregious example of the latter, in which eight heavily armed officers searching for robbery suspects assaulted two innocent men enjoying a hike.

When the Honolulu Police Commission found that the officers used unnecessary and excessive force and engaged in unbecoming conduct, the department discarded the findings and meted out no punishment. The city subsequently paid $167,500 to the victims to settle a civil complaint.

When not directly involved in reviews of such matters, as he was in that case, Chief Kealoha is sometimes the department’s lead rationalizer for questionable police behavior. He also usually joins Hawaii’s police union in opposing legislative efforts to hold cops to more stringent standards or to establish a board responsible for police training and performance. Hawaii remains the only state without such a board.

Trying to block the Ethics Commission’s work seems both a waste of time and horrible public relations. If there’s nothing to hide, Kealoha should let the commission finish its work. If there is something to hide, he’d be best advised to save his legal budget for what may lie ahead with the FBI.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Chief Kealoha emerges unscathed from his current predicament. The Kealohas’ suit alleges that the Ethics Commission’s executive director and a former investigator shouldn’t be allowed to investigate them, owing to a “conflict of interest” the Kealohas don’t specify. They also allege that the commission won’t share with them the formal complaint against them or investigative material it has compiled thus far.

But as the Kealohas surely know, the Ethics Commission often works with cases in which it is bound to protect the identity of an anonymous complainant. The commission is also bound “to submit a copy of the inquiry … to (the accused) for (his or her) response” and “to allow the parties to the matter a chance to request a hearing before the commission where they may be represented by counsel and present witnesses and exhibits,” according to the commission’s website.

All of that must happen before the commission issues a written opinion. Simply because the complaint and investigative material haven’t been shared thus far is no indication that they won’t be.

Meanwhile, that FBI investigation looms.

One state lawmaker, Sen. Will Espero, has already called on the police chief to step down from his leadership role until the FBI inquiry is complete. This is one of several options the Honolulu Police Commission is next week. We join Espero in this entirely reasonable request, given the gravity of the circumstances.