The trial for the alleged leader of a Hawaii organized crime outfit and six of his co-conspirators will be continued until January to allow the defense more time to prepare, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson granted a request to move the start date of Michael J. Miske Jr.’s trial from Sept. 11 to sometime in January. The U.S. Department of Justice had opposed pushing the trial’s start date into 2024.
In a March 31 filing by Miske’s attorneys, Michael J. Kennedy and Lynn E. Panagakos argued that losing Miske’s lead counsel of 2-1/2 years, Thomas Otake, forces the defense to do more work with a lot less help.
“Mr. Miske and his counsel look forward to his day in court in trial when the true facts will be presented to twelve jurors which will show that he is not guilty of the charges he faces after years of federal investigations which presumed guilt rather than sought the truth,” Kennedy told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a statement. “His counsel sought a mere four month trial continuance today following the loss of Mr. Otake as Mr. Miske’s lead trial attorney to level the playing field against the vast resources the federal government can bring against an accused individual like Mr. Miske. Common sense prevailed today when Chief Judge Watson granted Mr. Miske’s reasonable request against the government’s opposition.”
Kennedy has estimated “that it appears more than 75 individuals may have given testimony in the grand jury (proceeding) and the list of potential witnesses to be included in the ‘availability to serve’ questionnaire may exceed 300 individuals,” according to a declaration filed March 31.
“The United States is prepared to begin trial on the date ordered by the Court,” said U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors in a statement to the Star-Advertiser.
Otake withdrew after the U.S. Department of Justice successfully argued that his presence at a meeting with Miske and one of the government’s cooperating witnesses, who was allegedly involved in a California cocaine deal, created a conflict because Otake would likely be called to testify about that meeting at trial.
“Mr. Otake has been Mr. Miske’s lead trial counsel. Miske has always expected Mr. Otake to play an integral role in jury selection, make the opening statement, give the closing argument, cross- examine some of the important and critical witnesses, and conduct direct examinations of potential defense witnesses in response to the government’s case,” wrote Kennedy. “Mr. Miske now expects me to assume the role of lead trial counsel previously held by Mr. Otake. … To state the obvious, my trial responsibilities have grown exponentially due to the Court’s ruling.”
Panagakos, in her declaration, described the case as “massive.”
“The charges span over two decades. … The amount of discovery that has been produced is unprecedented in this district,” she wrote.
That evidence includes in excess of 2 million pages of documents, extractions from 51 digital devices, eight social media search warrant returns, in excess of 11,000 native files, over 200 hours of audio and video recordings, and 53.6 terabytes of polecam data, according to the filing.
“Due to the complexity of the case, and the enormous amount of work involved with the discovery, Mr. Kennedy was added as a third attorney to Mr. Miske’s defense team, to take an active role in case management, motions, trial preparation, and at trial,” wrote Panagakos. “Now that Mr. Kennedy will be taking over as lead trial attorney and we will have two trial attorneys instead of three, my responsibilities and scope of work have substantially increased.”
Miske, John B. Stancil, Dae Han Moon, Preston M. Kimoto, Delia-Anne Fabro-Miske, Jarrin Young and Jason K. Yokoyama entered pleas of not guilty Dec. 14 to a third superseding indictment filed Dec. 8.
They are accused of conspiring to run the “Miske Enterprise” through racketeering activity including murder, kidnapping, arson and robbery, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The indictment, a superseding indictment unsealed July 15, 2021, and the third superseding indictment also allege murder for hire; the use of chemical weapons; extortionate credit transactions; racketeering; interference with commerce through robbery and extortion; methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis trafficking; wire fraud; fraud in connection with identification documents; financial institution fraud; violations of the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act; money laundering; and obstruction of justice.
Miske, Stancil, Moon and Kimoto are in custody ahead of trial, while Fabro-Miske and Yokoyama are on supervised release. Kimoto had his supervised release revoked April 5 after he was arrested and charged with witness tampering for allegedly threatening a woman not to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation.
