An Oahu grand jury Friday indicted JL Capital CEO Timothy Lee, 48, on nine counts of false-name contribution for allegedly making $13,000 in campaign contributions in another person’s name in 2020 to the mayoral campaigns of Keith Amemiya and Kymberly Pine.
The false-name contribution charge is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.
Lee was served with
a bench warrant Monday and arrested. He posted a $250,000 bail bond Monday and was released from
custody.
A Circuit Court judge
Friday ordered that he surrender his passport at his arraignment and plea
Feb. 18 and that he stay away from two people whose names he allegedly used in making the
contributions.
This was the second
case in which Lee had gotten into trouble for allegedly
violating a campaign spending law. In 2021 the Campaign Spending Commission fined him for a violation in the same 2020 mayoral election cycle.
Lee donated $7,000 to Pine’s campaign, exceeding the state limit by $3,000. He was fined $500 but asked for and received a reduced fine of $166 because it was his first offense.
State law allows a person to make donations of up to $4,000 in mayoral races.
The indictment alleges that Lee made contributions totaling $5,000 to Amemiya’s campaign and $8,000 to Pine’s.
In October 2020 a whistleblower, through his
attorney Andrew Stewart,
reported to the commission that he and other employees of JL Capital, a Honolulu-
based investment firm, and its affiliate JL Ala Moana LLC, were directed by Lee
to make the donations by check and were reimbursed by Lee.
JL Capital has invested millions of dollars in Ala Moana-area properties.
JL Ala Moana LLC is the developer of the now-
completed $500 million Sky Honolulu (Sky Ala Moana) condominium project owned by Joon-ho Lee, who ranks among South Korea’s richest two dozen billionaires, according to Forbes.
The commission’s staff conducted an investigation on eight counts of false-name contributions and found that employees made the donations and were reimbursed by Lee a total of $12,000.
The commission’s
executive director in 2022 recommended turning over the case to the Department of the Attorney General, which it did.
The department’s Special Investigation and Prosecution Division and the Investigations Division investigated the matter and apparently discovered an additional
donation in the amount of $1,000, bringing the total to nine counts and $13,000.
SIPD is the state’s primary law enforcement unit
responsible for investigating and prosecuting corruption, fraud and economic crimes, the attorney general said in a news release, adding that the Investigations Division conducts criminal and administrative investigations into state-related matters.
“Campaign contribution laws are critical safeguards of our electoral process,” said Attorney General Anne Lopez in a written statement. “The Department of the Attorney General will vigorously investigate and prosecute individuals that violate these laws.”
The Attorney General’s Office brought the matter before a grand jury Friday, just under the five-year statute of limitations.
The allegedly illegal contributions and reimbursements were made between March and June 2020, the indictment says.
It says Lee contributed a total of $13,000 with checks drawn from six different accounts in the amounts of $1,000, $2,000 and $4,000 to either Amemiya for Mayor or Friends of Kymberly Pine.
It says Lee reimbursed them in cash or checks from a Central Pacific Bank account in the names of Timothy Lee and Kanako O. Lee. In one instance the reimbursement was made to Hibiscus Interactive LLC from a check drawn from an account in the name of JL Avalon Capbridge LLC.
According to the whistleblower’s complaint, Lee approached him and other employees shortly after he began working at JL Capital in 2020.
The complaint says Lee told him to write two checks, one for $1,000 to Amemiya’s campaign and another for $2,000 to Pine’s.
He then received an envelope with $3,000 in cash, the complaint says.
The whistleblower’s complaint includes bank records that show Lee wrote a check June 11, 2020, made payable to $3,000 cash, which Lee cashed the same day.
Stewart said the whistleblower was fired after exposing Lee’s alleged illegal contribution activities.
Lee’s attorney, David Minkin, in a March 2, 2022, letter, denied Lee gave the whistleblower cash to
reimburse for campaign
contributions. Minkin said Lee terminated him and gave him a small amount
of money from his personal funds to help in the whistleblower’s transition to different employment.
Minkin did not return
a phone call Monday requesting comment on the
indictment.
Gary Kam, general counsel for the commission, said in 2022 that the investigation did not focus on donation recipients or check-
writing employees.
When asked whether the AG is investigating either
the recipients or those who wrote the checks, spokesperson Toni Schwartz responded, “The Department of the Attorney General will not make statements on the existence or status of possible investigations or on
possible pending cases.”
Amemiya said in 2022 he and his campaign team were unaware anyone had been reimbursed for their donations by Lee and that the commission confirmed they were not the subject of an investigation.
In response to Lee’s indictment, Pine said Monday: “I’m grateful this person wanted to support me, but
I can say, if this is true, I’m extremely disappointed
because it makes all candidates and their treasurers, who are trying to work extremely hard to be open, honest and transparent, look bad.
“He worked for one of the wealthiest Korean landowners that owns almost all of the Ala Moana area. Typically a person of that stature could easily have raised money with all his Ala Moana partners.”
Regarding Lee’s first campaign contribution violation, Pine recalls the first check was written in 2017 and the second in late 2020. When her campaign was made aware of it, her treasurer worked with the commission, she said.
Kam said there were three of four donations made under the name Timothy J. Lee, and one was under the name Tim Lee. The commission office caught the discrepancy and notified Lee.
Pine was not fined, but voluntarily paid the fine on Lee’s behalf and, by law, had to return the $3,000 excess contribution to the Hawaii Election Campaign Fund, Kam said, adding it is not unusual for a candidate to pay a fine on a donor’s behalf.
