STAR-ADVERTISER / AUG. 2015
Former Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi, left, and Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, center, arrived before oral arguments at the Hawaii State Supreme Court. The attorney for Abigail Kawananakoa said in court Thursday that his client is appalled by a move to remove her from the board of directors of a charity she set up in her trust to serve the Native Hawaiian community after her death.
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The attorney for Abigail Kawananakoa said in court Thursday that his client is appalled by a move to remove her from the board of directors of a charity she set up in her trust to serve the Native Hawaiian community after her death.
“This is nothing more than an insult and a mockery of this court,” said Michael Lilly, reading from a statement by the Campbell Estate heiress.
Circuit Judge R. Mark Browning postponed a decision about who should have control of Kawananakoa’s $215 million trust, adding another 50 days to the proceeding to consider new motions, including a request by the newly formed Abigail KK Kawananakoa Foundation board of directors to intercede in the case.
Represented by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., the board — made up of
Oswald Stender, Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa and Jan Dill — filed a motion this week to join the case in an effort to protect the $100 million charity.
But at Thursday’s hearing Lilly said his client was improperly booted from the board and that the directors have no legal basis to litigate the matter.
What’s more, Kawananakoa is “appalled,” he said, because she considers Stender and Kame‘eleihiwa her “archenemies.”
After the hearing, Stender said he was surprised. He said he considered Kawananakoa a longtime friend. And while Kame‘eleihiwa may have engaged in a few skirmishes with Kawananakoa over the years, her intentions, like those of the rest of the board, are to carry out her wishes to help Hawaiians, he said.