Hawaii island’s homegrown mayor from Kalapana and Hilo seemed on an unlikely path to a bright future in island politics.

Instead, two-term Mayor Billy Kenoi — a former Honolulu deputy public defender and disciple of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye — must answer to felony, misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor charges from his time in office from 2011 to 2015.

Kenoi, 47, was elected to his first four-year term in 2008, and previously had been executive assistant to former Mayor Harry Kim. He began his political rise as a congressional intern to Inouye, and put in a year as a legislative aide in the state House during the 1993 session, and in the state Senate for the 1995/1996 session.

After five years as a deputy public defender in Honolulu, Kenoi would spend the next six in the Hawaii County mayor’s office as an assistant to Kim — in the thick of the county’s battle against a crystal methamphetamine, or “ice,” epidemic. His work led to connections with community leaders, federal and state officials and county police and prosecutors.

Kenoi, a 1986 Waiakea High School graduate, is married and has three teenage children. He always had a reputation for bad-boy habits, but his many supporters hoped those days were over.

During a May 15 Hawaii Pacific University commencement speech captured on YouTube, Kenoi hinted at the troubles of his past, including his unlikely and unsupported hope to become a lawyer.

“I had one 1.8 GPA out of high school and when I told guys I was going college they told me, ‘Easy, Hawaiian. Maybe you better throttle back some of that ambition and dreams,’” Kenoi told the HPU graduates and their families. “I’m here fo’ tell you guys: No listen to them, OK? ‘Cause next thing you knoooowwww — anything is possible. … When I told people I was going to be the mayor of Hawaii island, they told me, ‘How do you plan on doing that?’ When I told people I was going to be one lawyer, they said, ‘Bruddah, you need one lawyer. You not going to be one lawyer.’”

Kenoi could not get accepted to the University of Hawaii, he said. But after attending Hawaii Community College, he graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was chosen to speak at his own graduation from UH’s William S. Richardson School of Law.

“Even my dad, God bless him, would look at me (and) go, ‘Hey boy, tell me the truth: (You) cheating or what?’” Kenoi said in his HPU commencement address. “I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, Dad. Fo’ real? Fo’ real?’ … I knew I wasn’t the smartest. I knew I never had any advantages on anybody.”