The city’s former corporation counsel entered a not guilty plea today to new charges that she made false statements to agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation about who she spoke with and how she organized a $250,000 separation settlement with former Honolulu police Chief Louis Kealoha.
“Miss Leong adamantly denies the new allegations raised only now by the government,” said her attorney, Lynn E. Panagakos, in a statement to the Star-Advertiser. “…we will vigorously fight these false charges.”
It is not clear why the Justice Department elected to file the new allegations three months after the initial Dec. 16 indictment of Leong, former Managing Director Roy Amemiya and former Honolulu Police Commission Chair Max Sword.
Federal prosecutors from southern California who are handling the case for the federal government have declined to answer any questions about the investigation or prosecution.
Leong allegedly lied FBI agents on five occasions about who she talked to and how she structured Kealoha’s 2017 settlement, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a superseding indictment filed March 17, assistant U.S. Attorney Colin M. McDonald wrote that on Nov. 17, 2017, Leong, made “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” to federal agents.
The indictment did not include new charges against Sword and Leong.
Leong, the city’s corporation counsel from 2013 to 2019, allegedly told FBI agents that the acting HPD chief at the time, Cary Okimoto, had nothing to do with the payout, never communicated with her about it and did not protest until after it was done, which the federal government argues is not true.
Leong also “falsely stated” to the FBI that she did not have any conversations with then HPD Assistant Chief William R. Axt about the separation agreement.
Leong also allegedly made a false statement when she reportedly said that deputy corporation counsel, Duane Pang, would not have been able to discuss the agreement outside of the Honolulu Police Commission because she controlled the process “very tightly.”
Leong, Amemiya and Sword are accused of conspiring to defraud the government by paying Kealoha $250,000 to voluntarily leave HPD in January 2017 and not clearing the agreement with the City Council.
The trio turned themselves in to the FBI on Jan. 12 and have entered pleas of not guilty.
Their trial is scheduled for June 13 at 9 a.m.
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