HONOLULU — A U.S. district court judge on Friday was expected to consider whether to take early testimony from a 99-year-old woman prosecutors have described as a key witness in a Hawaii corruption investigation focusing on a former Honolulu police chief and his wife, a former deputy city prosecutor.
U.S. prosecutors want to question Florence Puana this month in a deposition that would be presented at the trial later because they are concerned about her age and her health.
Puana is the grandmother of Katherine Kealoha, who led a unit in the Honolulu prosecutor’s office that focused on career criminals. Kealoha and her now-retired police chief husband Louis Kealoha are accused of defrauding relatives, banks and children to maintain a lavish lifestyle.
The testimony of Puana “is central to establishing one of the motives behind the charged conspiracy,” prosecutors said in court documents.
Katherine Kealoha stole money from her grandmother and uncle and when they threatened to expose the fraud, Kealoha tried to have her grandmother declared incapacitated and framed her uncle for stealing the Kealohas’ home mailbox, prosecutors have said.
The Kealohas used police resources, abused their authority and conspired with officers to frame the uncle, according to prosecutors.
The trial focusing on the mailbox conspiracy allegations is scheduled for May and is expected to continue through at least the end of June. A deposition would preserve Puana’s testimony for the trial, even if it is postponed again, prosecutors said. The trial had been scheduled to start in March, but was delayed because Katherine Kealoha needed cancer treatment.
Lawyers representing the Kealohas said in court documents they do not oppose Puana’s deposition ahead of the trial.
But the lawyer for a co-defendant, Officer Minh-Hung “Bobby” Nguyen, said prosecutors have not provided details for “exceptional circumstances” to justify the deposition.
“The government has provided no evidence of the health issues which precipitated Ms. Puana’s recent hospitalization,” defense attorney Randall Hironaka said in court documents opposing the deposition request.
