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Sentencing for former electrical workers union boss delayed

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / 2016
                                Brian Ahakuelo

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / 2016

Brian Ahakuelo

The sentencing of the former business manager of a Hawaii labor union who was convicted of rigging a vote to raise dues and using members’ money to fund his family’s lavish lifestyle was continued today.

Senior U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor is under the weather this week and cleared her calendar. She is scheduled to be back on the bench next week.

Ahakuelo’s sentencing has been re-scheduled to July 20 at 10 a.m. in Gillmor’s court.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Gillmor to sentence Brian Ahakuelo, 62, former elected business manager and financial secretary of the Inter­national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 1260, to serve 14 years in federal prison.

Brian and his wife, Marilyn Ahakuelo, 59, were found guilty Nov. 21 of one count of conspiracy and 42 counts of wire fraud. Brian Ahakuelo was also convicted of 19 counts of money laundering. Marilyn Ahakuelo was sentenced March 28 to 70 months in federal prison.

He was elected business manager and financial secretary of Local 1260 in June 2011, reelected in 2014 and served until May 2016, when IBEW placed Local 1260 in an emergency trusteeship.

Following 14 years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice would like Ahaku­elo to spend three years on supervised release. He should pay restitution in the amount recommended by the U.S. Probation Office, $209,391.72, and a forfeiture money judgment, previously entered March 15, of $60,212.49, according to DOJ.

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