Former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha intends to sign a plea deal with federal prosecutors in which she will admit to three felony criminal offenses from two pending prosecutions, one of her attorneys said Friday.
“She told me she’s had it,” said lawyer Earle Partington. “She wants to get this over with.”
The deal, if signed by Kealoha and approved by the court, would be the culmination of a years-long federal investigation of someone who once held one of the top positions in the Prosecutor’s Office, ensuring she will spend a still-to-be-determined number of years in prison.
For the past several weeks, the federal government has been negotiating separately with Kealoha and her husband, retired Police Chief Louis Kealoha, on possible agreements that would resolve the couple’s pending prosecution for bank fraud charges and would affect the upcoming sentencing for their June conviction of conspiracy and
obstruction of justice.
Katherine Kealoha’s deal also would resolve another case in which she was charged with conspiracy to distribute and dispense illicit drugs and with “misprision” of a felony — or failing as a law enforcement officer to report a felony. Her brother, Dr. Rudolph Puana, also was charged with drug-related offenses in that case.
Rustam Barbee, Louis
Kealoha’s lawyer, said Friday that his client had not reached a deal with prosecutors, though negotiations were continuing.
Attorney Gary Singh, who represents Katherine Kealoha in the two pending criminal cases, also said Friday that his client had not signed a plea deal for those cases, but declined further comment.
Partington, who represents Kealoha in the conspiracy and obstruction case that already went to trial, said she told him and Singh on Friday that she plans to sign the proposed deal.
“This agreement gives her the chance of the lowest possible sentence,” Partington said, though he advised her that it was a bad deal.
The actual sentence would be decided by the court, but she would get credit for taking responsibility for her crimes.
According to the terms of the proposed agreement, Kealoha would plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, both felonies, in the case set to go to trial in January. She also would plead guilty to one count of misprision of a felony in the second case, which is set for trial in May.
All the remaining charges against her would be
dismissed.
Misprision of a felony is itself a felony. Partington previously had described the charge inaccurately as a misdemeanor.
Bank fraud, the most serious of the charges, comes with a possible sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.
As part of the plea deal, Kealoha would agree to cooperate with federal authorities in their ongoing public corruption probe. One target of that investigation is Kealoha’s former boss Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, who is on paid leave.
The federal investigation resulted in the cases against the Kealohas.
Kealoha also would agree to pay her grandmother Florence Puana and her grandmother’s son, Gerard Puana, nearly $290,000 in restitution as part of the plea deal.
Kealoha and the Puanas were involved in a family dispute over money in 2013 when Gerard Puana was falsely accused of stealing the Kealohas’ mailbox.
A federal jury in June found that the couple and two police officers used their law enforcement positions to try to frame Puana for that crime and then lied about their actions to federal investigators.
A day after the verdict, Kealoha was taken into custody following a hearing in which federal Prosecutor Michael Wheat described her as a “walking crime spree.” She has been kept at the federal detention center near Daniel K. Inouye International Airport since then.
Louis Kealoha, along with the two police officers who also were found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction, remains free on bail.
The Kealohas are scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 31 on the conspiracy and obstruction convictions. But that would be delayed if a plea deal is approved, attorneys said.
According to Partington, Katherine Kealoha is ready to start her prison term at a mainland institution that has education and other programs for inmates. No such programs are available at Honolulu’s detention center, he said.
Although Partington has described the plea agreement as a “terrible deal,” he said his client decided that it represented an opportunity to reduce her prison time.
“This is not a case of right or wrong reasons (for signing the deal),” he said. “She’s just ready to move on.”