A 92-year-old Honolulu architect was convicted in state court for bribery last week and faces up to 10 years in prison after being recorded in 2022 trying to slip a $20 bill to a city permit officer.
Yet, there have been no charges and conflicting explanations in the 2022 federal case involving a tape of an unnamed state legislator taking a bag containing $35,000.
**Corruption Fighting, Hawaii-Kine**
House Speaker Nadine Nakamura last week finally voiced concern about “the cloud placed over the entire state Legislature,” but her remarks came off as an invitation to the feds to ask her to back off. Acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson quickly obliged.
The case stems from federal bribery prosecutions that jailed state Sen. J. Kalani English and state Rep. Ty Cullen. Cullen cooperated with authorities to receive a reduced sentence.
In a 2023 filing, federal prosecutors stated that Cullen recorded “an influential state legislator” accepting a purported $35,000 campaign donation from a person of interest to authorities. They alluded to a “chargeable bribery offense.” However, there has been radio silence since.
Alexander Silvert, the retired federal public defender who spurred federal corruption convictions of Louis and Katherine Kealoha, stirred public attention with a Change.org petition demanding that the Legislature conduct its own investigation of its member’s possible corruption. The petition (change.org/p/restore-public-trust-investigate-the- unknown-hawai%CA%BBi-legislator) had 813 signatures as of Friday.
In a Star-Advertiser commentary, Silvert noted that the statute of limitations on the bribery case is looming in January 2027. “One could assume that the Legislature would want to police its own and investigate,” he wrote. “Particularly when it might prevent a possibly corrupt legislator from continuing to actively participate in voting on new laws, such as anti-corruption legislation or campaign spending limits.”
Representatives Della Au Belatti and Kanani Souza have also agitated for investigations by the Legislature, the Campaign Spending Commission, and the Ethics Commission.
Nakamura initially said a legislative investigation would be inappropriate while the federal probe is ongoing. But feeling the heat, last week she wrote to Sorenson asking if the federal investigation is still active and whether “parallel investigations by state authorities would complement or potentially interfere with your office’s work.”
She also wrote to state Attorney General Anne Lopez “to determine whether any Hawaii state laws may have been violated,” while noting that “my request is not intended to interfere with or duplicate federal efforts.”
Sorenson quickly responded that the federal probe remains active and “a parallel investigation by state authorities would potentially interfere with our investigation.”
In a confusing statement, he said, “the referenced ‘bribery offense’ is unrelated to the $35,000 in the paper bag. Put another way, the so-named ‘influential state legislator’ was not involved in the ‘bribery offense’ alluded to in the filing.”
So, a legislator took a paper bag stuffed with $35,000, and it wasn’t bribery? Then what was the bribery offense?
The cloud over the state keeps getting darker.
Viewing this tap dancing against the $20 handshake, the lesson seems to be: if you want to get away with bribery in Hawaii, bribe big.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/11/16/hawaii-news/volcanic-ash/volcanic-ash-legislators-not-in-any-rush-to-police-members-bribery/