New stain at Hawaii Legislature could be its worst

If Hawaii’s state Capitol had a hall of shame for legislators, J. Kalani English and Ty J.K. Cullen could be its headliners with the biggest fallen stars.

Several local veteran politicians and political analysts can’t recall worse corrupt acts by sitting Hawaii lawmakers than what English and Cullen were charged with Tuesday by federal prosecutors who allege the pair took cash and gifts from a local businessman in return for action on bills in recent years.

“This is really bad,” House Speaker Scott Saiki said Wednesday in the Capitol’s House chamber gallery. “I’m not sure how much worse it could get.”

Saiki said the charges against English, who resigned last year citing effects from COVID-19, and Cullen, who resigned Tuesday, were probably the “most egregious” allegations faced by a member of the Legislature during Saiki’s 28 years in office.

Ben Cayetano, who was Hawaii’s governor from 1994 to 2002 after serving eight years as lieutenant governor and 12 years in the Legislature, also said the English and Cullen case represents the most serious corruption he could think of in the history of Hawaii lawmakers.

Longtime local political analysts Jerry Burris and Neal Milner likewise could not recall a worse example of corrupt Hawaii lawmakers. But they also noted that legal campaign contributions and influence bestowed on lawmakers undoubtedly have had similar or more rotten effects on work at the Legislature.

“This is just an out-and-out quid pro quo,” Milner said, referring to the Latin term used to describe giving something for getting something.

The retired University of Hawaii political science professor said a lot of more subtle influence at the Legislature doesn’t rise to the level of a criminal act but can be just as harmful in undermining public confidence in democracy.

“There’s a lot of influence that is seamy or smarmy or plainly unethical that doesn’t pass the smell test,” Milner said.

Burris, a veteran Hawaii political observer and author, calls the system allowing publicly disclosed campaign contributions that can be inflated by donors through their family, friends and other associates “quasi-legal bribery.” But, he added, the case of English and Cullen is especially bad because what’s alleged by prosecutors is so blatant.

Burris wonders how many other past or present Hawaii lawmakers have secretly taken money and influential gifts for personal use.

“I’m sure there are lots of them, but the question is, How many are caught?” he said.

English-Cullen case

Bribery allegations against English include his accepting $10,000 from the owner of a local wastewater company to kill a cesspool bill two years ago, and taking an envelope containing $5,000 from the same person while sitting in a car in Kakaako under FBI observation.

“I can definitely use that right now. All the mortgages have become due,” English said about the $5,000, according to documents filed in the case.

English, who represented parts of Maui along with Molokai and Lanai, was Senate majority leader when he resigned in May, about a month after FBI agents confronted him in the car. He had been in the Senate since 2001.

Cullen was first elected to the state House in 2010 and was vice chairman of the House Finance Committee when he resigned. The former representative of Royal Kunia, Waipahu and Makakilo is accused of taking $23,000 in bribes from 2019 to 2020 from the same business owner, identified as Milton J. Choy, to work on legislation benefiting Choy’s company H2O Process Systems or affiliates.

English and Cullen have indicated they intend to plead guilty.

Sandy Ma, executive director of good-government advocacy group Common Cause Hawaii, expressed disgust over the acts for which English and Cullen have been charged, and is dismayed that she hasn’t seen much anger or outrage from colleagues of the two disgraced former lawmakers.

“Yesterday I was sad and today I’m really upset,” she said Wednesday. “I’m mad.”

Ma also was hard-pressed to name a Hawaii lawmaker who has left a bigger stain at the Legislature long filled almost entirely by Democrats.

“It’s up there,” she said of the English and Cullen case.

Bad company

Many past criminal cases involving state legislators involve illegal use of campaign funds or crimes not centered around their part-time job at the Capitol.

Some of these cases share an element that appears in the English and Cullen affair, with lawmakers needing money.

For instance, former state Sen. Marshall Ige received a six-month prison term in 2002 for taking $7,000 from an Oahu farmer in 1999 after threatening to evict the farmer from leased land. Ige plead guilty to the second- degree theft charge and four counts having to do with taxes.

Ige served in the Legislature representing Kaneohe in the House and Senate from 1982 to 2000.

As part of Ige’s plea deal, other charges were dismissed. These included Ige refusing to return $30,000 to a California couple who paid him for legal work he didn’t accomplish and then hiding the money from tax authorities by having it parceled out to him in small amounts through a businessman.

Ige repaid the couple after being sued, and asked a state judge not to impose jail time. Ige’s lawyer said his client was in dire financial straits.

Kurt Spohn, a deputy attorney general handling the case, told the court that prison time was in order, according to a Honolulu Star-Bulletin story at the time.

“I think it’s clear that the courts have recognized that we have an epidemic of public corruption,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s clear that a lawmaker who commits crimes can expect to see a jail sentence.”

In 2005 certified public accountant Nathan Suzuki, who represented the Alia­manu-Moanalua Valley-Salt Lake area in the House from 1992 to 2002, received a three-year prison sentence for conspiring with a Honolulu businessman to defraud the IRS by setting up offshore corporations and bank accounts to shield his client from tax liability while Suzuki was a lawmaker.

Former state House Speaker Daniel Kihano received a two-year prison sentence in 1998 for 17 criminal counts that included money laundering, obstruction of justice and filing a false income tax return after he diverted $27,000 from his campaign fund for personal use after retiring in 1992 from a 22-year career in the Legislature.

Kihano, who had represented the Crestview- Waipahu area, testified that he took $20,000 from his campaign account after he left office because he was broke, but intended to pay it back.

Another lawmaker imprisoned following alleged personal use of campaign funds was Milton Holt, who in 1999 accepted a plea agreement limited to mail fraud.

Holt, a state legislator for 18 years representing Kalihi and Kamehameha Heights until 1996, served about six months in prison.

In a case of voter fraud, onetime Senate Majority Leader Clifford “Chip” Uwaine was convicted in 1986 of plotting to illegally register voters to help a protege, Ross Segawa, win a House seat in 1982.

The scheme involved recruiting people to vote outside the district in which they lived to boost votes for Segawa’s primary bid for a seat representing the Moiliili- Makiki area. Segawa served two months in jail. Uwaine, who represented the Moiliili- Sheridan-McCully area, served 88 days of a 90-day prison sentence.

Another lawmaker convicted in a similar scheme was Gene Albano, who served 18 months of a five-year sentence stemming from a 1982 reelection effort in his Kalihi House district.

One of the most contentious and high-profile criminal cases involving Hawaii lawmakers involved theft indictments brought in 1999 against former House Speaker Henry Peters and former Senate President Richard “Dickie” Wong in connection with their work approving a Hawaii Kai condominium project land sale by Kamehameha Schools as trustees of the organization then known as Bishop Estate.

However, the indictments were thrown out by a state judge and upheld by the Hawaii Supreme Court on grounds that some grand jury testimony was tainted and some was improperly halted.

English and Cullen face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.