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A committee recommended Tuesday that the City Council approve the settlement of a lawsuit filed by a man who was jailed on theft charges, only to be released six months later in an apparent case of mistaken identity.

Duane Kaaialii Jr. was taken into custody in January 2020 after he was accused of stealing two watches from a store in Waikiki, court records show. But the suspect, who was caught on surveillance video, had leg tattoos, which Kaaialii does not, according to a complaint filed in August 2022. 

The City Council’s committee on executive matters and legal affairs approved a request to authorize a settlement after discussing it in executive session on Tuesday. Details will not available until it is approved by the City Council at its monthly meeting on Jan. 24. 

Kaaialii’s attorney, Eric Seitz, declined to comment on the amount of the settlement until it gets final approval.

Kaaialii was charged with second-degree theft in December 2019 after he was accused of stealing two watches valuing $750 from Shinola, a store in Waikiki, on July 14, 2019, according to the complaint.

The suspect who stole the watches was caught on surveillance video in the store and the mall with “prominent tattoos clearly visible on both legs,” the complaint says. 

Two weeks later, a Honolulu police officer investigating the theft watched the videos and identified the suspect as Kaaialii. The officer had had previous interactions with Kaaialii between 2012 and 2015 while investigating illegal gambling establishments, the complaint says. 

In the following months, officers conducted photographic lineups with the manager of the Shinola store and a sales associate, neither of whom were able to identify Kaaialii as the suspect who stole the watches. 

Despite this, Kaaialii was issued a bench warrant on Jan. 22, 2020, and held in the Oahu Community Correctional Center on $20,000 bail.

In August of that year, he filed a motion to dismiss the charges, citing a lack of probable cause.

“The facts that Kaaialii does not have tattoos on his legs and that the only two eyewitnesses said that Kaaialii was not the person who stole the watches are more than sufficient to render the already shaky identification of Kaaialii from the surveillance video completely insufficient to establish probable cause that Kaaialii is the person who stole the watches,” a memorandum filed by Walter Schoettle, Kaaialii’s lawyer at the time, says. 

Michelle Yu, spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Ian Scheuring, spokesman for the City and County of Honolulu, said the city’s corporation counsel would not comment on pending litigation until it gets final approval from the City Council.

On Aug. 6, 2020, the court ordered the Honolulu Police Department to take photographs of Kaaialii’s legs. His charges were dismissed the next day, and he was released. 

The months he spent in custody caused him to lose income as well as suffer “emotional distress, anxiety and mental pain and suffering,” according to the lawsuit.

“The police and the prosecutor knew or should have known that he wasn’t the person who was involved in this offense because the person who was described looked significantly different,” Seitz said. 

Seitz said Kaaialii has been doing well and working since he got out of jail and the money he expects to receive from the settlement will help him “enormously.”