A Buddhist minister, who conducted services at his Diamond Head home, and his wife were each sentenced to two years in federal prison Thursday for intentionally failing to report as income more than $2.3 million in
donations to their Sun
Mission and spending it on their lavish lifestyle.
Bishop Jiitsu Yamauchi, 63, and Lorraine Yamauchi, 70, have until Nov. 30 to turn themselves in to begin serving their sentences.
In addition to the prison terms, U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi ordered the Yamauchis to pay the Internal Revenue Service $621,986 in back taxes for 2008-2014. They also face having to pay civil penalties and interest to the IRS and possible civil judgments
to congregation members.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael David Nammar told Kobayashi that the Yamauchis have already paid the restitution in full.
Jiitsu Yamauchi’s lawyer Gary Singh said the Yamauchis immediately took responsibility for their actions and found a buyer for their beachfront property on Maui to pay their back taxes. They both pleaded guilty in June.
Nammar said had the Yamauchis not been caught, he believes they would have continued their tax fraud, with Jiitsu Yamauchi as the frontman soliciting donations and Lorraine Yamauchi, the Sun Mission’s bookkeeper, as the “bag lady.”
Jiitsu Yamauchi, speaking both in Japanese through an interpreter and in English, asked Kobayashi to let him serve his wife’s sentence.
“It’s my fault. She’s old,” he said.
Lorraine Yamauchi told Kobayashi: “I know I did a terrible thing, and I truly regret doing it. I’m truly sorry to my friends and members.”
Kobayashi said she found the husband and wife equally culpable. She noted that most of the donations came from elderly congregation members and that the Yamauchis spent the money on 25 luxury vehicles, expensive jewelry, condominiums and a $1 million home.
The Yamauchis even formed a separate company to manage their properties.
Nammar said members were regular working people who donated their life savings to Sun Mission, including Lorraine Yamauchi’s sister, who also handed over her husband’s retirement funds and took out a loan against her life insurance. He said another victim was
a state employee yet was able to donate more than $1.5 million over five years, including an inheritance.
He said among the $275,000 in purchases the Yamauchis made at Ben Bridge Jeweler was a 4.2-carat diamond ring. Nammar said the cars they bought include two Ferraris, two Mercedes-Benzes, a Lamborghini, a Porsche, a Chevrolet Corvette and a Nissan GTR.