A Kauai County councilman filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho and other county officials, accusing them of abuse of power.
Councilman Tim Bynum claims the officials wrongly prosecuted him on allegations that he had an illegal kitchen in an addition to his house in Kapaa.
He called the county’s move political retaliation and an attempt to block him from questioning the financial activities of the prosecutor’s office. The suit names Iseri-Carvalho, supervising planning inspector Sheila Miyake and the county.
"I want the County of Kauai to quit abusing their power and make sure this doesn’t happen to others," Bynum said Thursday. "I want the people involved held accountable so this doesn’t happen again."
Iseri-Carvalho, in Albany, N.Y., attending a seminar, said by phone, "I haven’t seen the complaint. We haven’t had the opportunity to review the complaint."
She said the suit’s timing "was strategically planned in light of the upcoming election. It doesn’t give us much of an opportunity to respond appropriately."
Both Iseri-Carvalho and Bynum are seeking re-election Nov. 6.
County Attorney Al Castillo Jr. also could not be reached for comment on behalf of Kauai County.
Sarah Blane, a county spokeswoman, said by email that the county would not comment because the federal complaint concerns an ongoing legal matter.
The complaint says First Deputy Prosecutor Jake Delaplane secretly recorded a conversation with Miyake in which she told him a zoning violation notice filed in November 2010 against Bynum was politically driven.
Miyake allegedly told Delaplane, "It is all political, but I will never say on the stand that it is political. It will be my demise."
The suit says Miyake entered Bynum’s property in Kapaa without notifying him to inspect an addition he constructed at his home in 2005.
Miyake told the Star-Advertiser the allegations are baseless. "Everything is taken out of context," she said. "I didn’t even handle this case."
Bynum accused Iseri-Carvalho of waiting about a year after the violation notice was issued, the next election-year cycle, to file four criminal zoning charges against him in Circuit Court. Two of the four charges claimed he had an illegal second kitchen because of a rice cooker and a refrigerator inside the addition. The other two charges were based on the alleged presence of a lock on the door between the addition and the original house.
Iseri-Carvalho allegedly wrote to the County Council in January 2012 demanding that Bynum be recused from meetings when he attempted to ask questions about the budget of the prosecutor’s office while the zoning case was pending.
In April, Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe removed the prosector’s office from the case. A special deputy attorney general who took over the case found no zoning violations, according to the complaint.
Margery Bronster, one of the attorneys representing Bynum, said, "To take Tim Bynum through a criminal charge on such a manini matter was absurd, particularly so because he didn’t do anything wrong."
