There are so many disturbing aspects to the corruption scandal of former Maui Environmental Management Director Stewart O. Stant that the public must absorb, and remember, the many lessons learned. Heeding warning signs is the public’s only hope to thwart governmental corruption in our midst.
Stant, 55, was convicted in what law officials called the largest known federal bribery case in Hawaii’s history — pocketing more than $2 million in bribes in exchange for steering at least 56 government contracts to a Honolulu wastewater company.
On Wednesday, Stant was sentenced to 10 years in prison and to pay $1.9 million in restitution — the right message-sending punishment imposed by U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson called Stant’s case “so brazen and wanton that $733,000 of the bribes were paid by bank deposits and checks. The money was so pervasive that many times it wasn’t even connected to a particular project … it was just a stream of benefits ensuring that Mr. Stant stayed on retainer.”
Between 2012 and 2018 Stant greedily accepted money that bought the influence and power entrusted to him by taxpayers. His payoffs from H20 Process Systems owner Milton J. Choy (who also factored into the corruption convictions of former legislators J. Kalani English and Ty Cullen) included: $424,987 to a travel company to cover Stant’s trips, plus $187,000 for dining, $60,000 for hostess bars and $54,000 for luxury hotel stays.
And still, despite all that, Stant’s prominent friends came to his aid, adding a galling epilogue to this sordid tale of corruption.
Nearly 50 people, some well known in the community, wrote pre-sentencing letters to the court supporting Stant, in hopes of a lighter sentence. Among them, former Mayor Alan Arakawa, who had appointed Stant in late 2015 to head Maui’s Environmental Management agency.
In his letter, Arakawa called Stant a hard-working and intelligent county employee who was an Eagle Scout and a “dedicated son and father.” Further, wrote Arakawa, who said he’s known Stant for nearly 30 years, “I trusted him enough to loan him several thousand dollars so he could set up these various enterprises. He always repaid me.”
For a former Maui mayor to publicly nudge for leniency for a criminal like Stant is incomprehensible. Supporting a friend privately is one thing, but publicly gilding a public official who brazenly sold his high office for $2 million in personal luxuries undermines the severity of Stant’s offense. It’s that complicit culture of looking the other way or minimizing insidious behavior that enables it to fester; it emboldens public corruptors to think they can “get away with it.” If we ever hope to arrest corruption, none of us should be fostering such a culture.
