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Employees of a prominent Honolulu engineering firm had a hard time explaining their generosity toward former county prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro when they were questioned by the feds in 2021. 

Mitsunaga & Associates employees Chad McDonald, Terri Ann Otani and Aaron Fujii testified before a grand jury about why they donated to Kaneshiro and if they coordinated their donations. In audio clips from their testimony played in court this week, they provided little information. 

During a February 2021 appearance, federal prosecutor Michael Wheat pressed McDonald about what he liked about Kaneshiro. Other than saying the candidate seemed “definitive” in his decisions, McDonald couldn’t say why he donated $1,000 to Kaneshiro’s campaign in 2015.

“You have no idea why you contributed to Mr. Kaneshiro,” Wheat said. 

“I can’t recall,” McDonald said. 

“Did you ever discuss giving political contributions to Mr. Kaneshiro with anyone else?” Wheat asked later. 

McDonald said no. At a later date, McDonald told the grand jury he doesn’t coordinate his political giving with anyone else. 

In court on Wednesday, though, McDonald clarified that Mitsunaga did ask him to donate to candidates from time to time, and he did so.

“Politics is entrenched in his life,” McDonald said. “I trusted his judgment and over time, we shared similar views on candidates.”

All together, Mitsunaga’s team allegedly steered nearly $50,000 toward Kaneshiro’s campaign during a time when the firm was seeking the prosecution of a former employee, Laurel Mau. The company claimed Mau falsified time sheets and stole company time by doing side jobs during her work day — charges the feds have characterized as baseless — and Kaneshiro’s office pursued the case, though it was ultimately dismissed. 

Former CEO Dennis Mitsunaga, company lawyer Sheri Tanaka and employees McDonald, Otani and Fujii are now charged with conspiring to bribe Kaneshiro, also charged in the case. Their trial, which began in March, is wrapping up and could conclude as early as next week. 

The audio clips provided the jury with the first, and perhaps only, opportunity to hear from some of the defendants in their own words. While McDonald took the stand in his own defense this week, it’s unclear if his co-defendants will do the same. 

During the grand jury questioning, Wheat noted several donations from Mitsunaga-connected individuals to Kaneshiro that occurred around the same time. He questioned why McDonald, Fujii, both their wives and Otani would all make $1,000 donations to Kaneshiro on Oct. 22, 2015. 

“This is what I’m trying to figure out — why the five of you would do the exact same thing on the exact same day,” Wheat said. 

“And I don’t have that answer as to — as to why,” McDonald said. 

McDonald’s attorney, Tommy Otake, later clarified that the checks were written on different days in October 2015 but were deposited by Kaneshiro’s campaign on the same day.

During Fujii’s grand jury testimony, Wheat asked him if he’d ever discussed Kaneshiro with anyone at Mitsunaga & Associates.

“No, not to my recollection,” he said.

Fujii said he could only remember donating to Kaneshiro once, perhaps at the request of his campaign. In fact, records show, he donated three times, in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

According to Otani’s grand jury testimony, she had trouble remembering just about anything about her donation history.

“To whom have you made political contributions?” Wheat asked her.

“I can’t recall,” she said.

Wheat outlined her political giving over more than a decade: $18,000 in 2010, $12,000 in 2011, $15,000 in 2012.

In response to each donation total, Otani responded the same way: “I don’t recall.”

“Do you have any recollection of, over the last 10 years, making a $145,000 in political contributions?” Wheat asked.

“No. I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I don’t recall.”

“Is it possible?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Asked if she coordinates her political giving with anyone, Otani, once again, said she did not recall.

At a later grand jury appearance, Wheat asked Otani if she ever had a role soliciting campaign contributions for politicians.

“Not on their behalf,” she said in the recording. “Nobody’s behalf.”

During the trial, though, prosecutors presented evidence showing that Otani had purchased cashier’s checks to donate to political campaigns. The memo lines of two checks to Trevor Ozawa’s campaign in 2015 listed the names of Otani’s sister and niece, who testified earlier in the trial that they did not make many of the donations that were attributed to them in campaign spending records.

On Wednesday, as prosecutors wrapped up their case, they showed a video clip of a 2012 television appearance Kaneshiro made with the candidate running against him at the time, Kevin Takata. Kaneshiro was asked by the interviewer about cases that may be referred to prosecutors but which should not be charged.

“It’s important that we charge cases,” Kaneshiro said. “But it’s also very important that we don’t charge if there is no evidence to support the charge.”

On Thursday, McDonald spoke in his own defense, denying any involvement in a conspiracy with his co-defendants and any intention to bribe Kaneshiro. The prosecution has focused on McDonald’s signing of a legal declaration, which the feds called “misleading,” that helped Kaneshiro’s office charge Mau with theft.

McDonald testified that an error in the document was an oversight but that he had a genuine belief that Mau had stolen from the company.

Also on Thursday, Mitsunaga’s attorney Nina Marino presented evidence showing that the contributions from Mitsunaga’s team to Kaneshiro from 2006 through 2021 represent less than 5% of the group’s total political giving in that time. The prosecution, focusing only on the period Mitsunaga and his associates gave to Kaneshiro, have noted that the group’s giving represented 40% of all contributions Kaneshiro received in that period, from 2012 through 2016.

Meanwhile, the defense has asked the judge to throw the whole case out. In a motion for a judgment of acquittal, defense attorneys wrote that there is insufficient evidence to prove there was a direct exchange of campaign cash for the prosecution of Laurel Mau.

According to the motion, the government failed to introduce clear evidence of a quid pro quo “nor sufficient circumstantial evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that such an agreement ever existed.”

“No witness testified that he or she heard defendant Kaneshiro agree with any other defendant to prosecute Mau in exchange for campaign contributions,” the motion states. “Nor did any documentary evidence establish this alleged explicit agreement.”

Prosecutors have until Monday to respond to that motion. 

Most of the defendants are free on bail, but Mitsunaga has been locked up at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu since last month after prosecutors accused him of witness tampering. However, on Monday, Marino requested he be released, under certain conditions, due to his poor health. She said Mitsunaga sustained a fall in jail last weekend, causing him to be hospitalized, and he must be released to ensure his well-being.

Prosecutors have countered that medical concerns can be addressed in other ways and that Mitsunaga’s alleged behavior necessitates his continued detention.

Judge Timothy Burgess will hear arguments on Friday morning on whether Mitsunaga should remain behind bars for the duration of the trial.