The U.S. Department of Justice is accusing former city corporation counsel Donna Leong of lying to FBI agents on five occasions about her work to structure a $250,000 settlement for former HPD Chief Louis Kealoha.
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 FBI agents investigating Kealoha’s payout. Leong, the city’s corporation counsel from 2013 to 2019, allegedly told FBI agents that the acting HPD Chief at the time had nothing to do with the payout, never talked to her about it and did not complain until after it was completed, which the federal government claims is not true.
Leong allegedly made a false statement to FBI agents when she said that deputy corporation counsel Duane Pang would not have been able to talk to anyone outside the Honolulu Police Commission about the settlement because she controlled the process “very tightly.”
It is not clear why the justice department elected to file the new allegations three months after the initial Dec. 16 indictment of Leong, Amemiya and Sword.
Kelly Thornton, director of media relations for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of California, which is handling the case, declined comment.
Leong’s attorney, Lynn Panagakos, did not immediately reply to a Star-Advertiser request for comment.
Neither the DOJ nor Panagakos responded to a question about whether or not Leong was offered a plea deal in exchange for cooperation.
Leong, former managing director Roy Amemiya, and former Honolulu Police Commission Chair Max Sword were indicted Dec. 16 and accused of conspiring to defraud the government by paying Kealoha $250,000 to leave HPD. 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.
A hearing about the status of the ailing former director of the city department of Budget and Fiscal Services, Nelson Koyanagi, who was ordered to be deposed in the case, is scheduled for today at 4 p.m.
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