Grand Jury Indicts Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi On Theft Charges
He charged over $9,000 of personal expenses to his county-issued credit card over five years; now a bench warrant has been issued for his arrest.
The state聽Attorney General’s office said Wednesday that a Big Island聽聽grand jury has indicted Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi.
The charges are聽two counts of felony theft, two additional counts of misdemeanor theft, three counts of tampering with a government record and one count of false swearing, meaning making false statements under oath.
The charges stem from alleged incidents of misconduct from 2011 through 2015 involving聽the mayor’s personal use of a county-issued credit card.
They include:
- Second-degree theft, Class C felonies each punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
- Third-degree theft, misdemeanors each punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
- Tampering with a government record, misdemeanors each punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
- False swearing, a petty misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Attorney General Doug Chin said in a statement, 鈥淭he Department of the Attorney General sought this indictment after an intensive investigation that lasted almost a year.鈥
An indictment is a finding of probable cause and “is not a criminal conviction,” the AG’s Office noted.
A bench聽warrant has been issued for Kenoi’s arrest, something a spokesperson for the attorney general聽described as standard procedure.
A message seeking comment was left with Kenoi’s office Wednesday afternoon.
Kenoi was seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party until聽the scandal broke in March 2015.
The Hawaii Tribune Herald that Kenoi spent nearly $900 at a hostess bar in Honolulu in 2013.
Kenoi had blocked the newspaper’s requests for his credit card statements for years. He ended up $9,559 to the county after reports on his misspending were published.
Kenoi last year for the expenditures, which included $1,200 for a surfboard.
His executive assistants also nearly $143,000 on their county credit cards, including questionable expenses such as airfare for a local surfer to attend a competition in California in 2012.
Read the indictment:
