Mayor Billy Kenoi was acquitted of all remaining charges Tuesday in his criminal trial in Hilo Circuit Court.
A 12-person jury consisting of Hawaii Island residents found the mayor not guilty of two counts of second-degree theft, two counts of third-degree theft and one count of false swearing for alleged abuse of his county credit card, known as a pCard. Jurors deliberated for one day following closing arguments.
About two dozen of his supporters applauded, and some wiped away tears, after Judge Dexter Del Rosario read the verdict.
Kenoi, who softly said “thank you” to jurors, left the courtroom with his wife, Takako, after hugging family and friends. He did not make a statement and couldn’t be reached for comment later.
“From the get-go we described the false accusations as flimsy,” defense attorney Todd Eddins told reporters outside the courthouse. “The trial established that that characterization was an understatement. This was an odious attempt to take down a once-in-a-generation good, decent man.”
Kenoi faced allegations of misuse of county funds for the past 18 months following media reports that he used the card to cover a nearly $900 tab at a Honolulu hostess bar and other questionable or personal purchases.
But, following a yearlong state investigation and a county audit, the two-term chief executive is able to leave office in December cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.
“Praise God,” said county employee Dorthi Botelho-Kaili when asked for comment as she left the courthouse.
Del Rosario, who was brought in from Oahu to oversee the case, earlier dismissed three counts of tampering with a government record due to lack of evidence.
“The crime of theft requires proof a person intended to permanently deprive his victim of what he stole,” said state Attorney General Douglas Chin in a prepared statement. “The prosecution argued that not paying back funds to the county of Hawaii until after the press caught him was proof of Mayor Kenoi’s intent. We respect the verdict and thank the jurors for their service.”
A Hawaii Island grand jury indicted Kenoi on the charges in March.
The state based its case specifically on 15 pCard transactions from 2011-14 that primarily focused on alcohol purchases at bars, restaurants and other locations that prosecutors described in court records as “exorbitant.” It did not involve two hostess bar visits or purchase of a $1,219 surfboard and $1,889 transaction at a bicycle shop that were highlighted in media reports. Each were reimbursed.
Expenses that were part of the case also included a lunch at Volcano House restaurant, a garment bag at Target, hotel stay at Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel for a nephew as a wedding gift and a farewell luncheon for one of Kenoi’s aides that involved alcohol.
Ken Lawson, a faculty member of the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law, said prosecutors had an uphill battle from the start no matter what transactions they built their case around.
“It’s not enough to show abuse of power or bad judgment,” he said after the verdict. “You have to show a really specific intent to deprive the person of the property.”
Lawson said the issue might have been better suited for an ethics review rather than criminal charges, suggesting the state overreached.
The state tried to prove wrongdoing by showing Kenoi did not submit receipts for the purchases as required by county policy and that he appeared to pay these particular charges back in response to requests for copies of his pCard records from a Big Island journalist.
Kenoi’s defense, led by Eddins, portrayed the mayor as a 24/7 workhorse whose large, likeable personality — and, yes, drinking — paid off for the county through relationships he built with gatekeepers and stakeholders. Eddins accused the state of having a “puritanical, prissy” approach to liquor and said prosecutors knew more about receipts than “lomi,” or taking care of people. The county’s pCard procedures might be faulty, but that doesn’t make the mayor a criminal, he also argued.
But perhaps the defense’s strongest rebuttal was the mayor himself. Kenoi, also an attorney, spent the first half-hour on the witness stand last week describing his simple upbringing in Kalapana and other parts of his life story. At a few times he became emotional as he spoke about his deceased parents. While that might seem like a gamble, seeing the personable mayor on the stand likely paid off.
Lawson said that was a smart move.
“When you have a person who has such a strong personality, who is likeable and, on the other side, you just have paperwork, it just makes it a very, very difficult trial,” he said.
Under cross-examination, Kenoi couldn’t explain one of his charges and the 250-day gap between charge and reimbursement for the wedding gift appeared to contradict his statement that he intended to pay it back quickly.
But Eddins said the county wasn’t out a “single penny,” and the state struggled to show that Kenoi intended to permanently deprive the county of money — the standard for a theft conviction.
Kenoi reimbursed 14 of the 15 transactions identified by prosecutors between four and 26 months after they occurred.
The mayor reimbursed the county for $22,292 of his approximately $130,000 in pCard charges between January 2009 and March 2015, when the state revoked his pCard. An additional $9,500 was paid back after Big Island newspapers published a story about one of the hostess bar expenses.
A 2015 county audit identified $23,683.41 in pCard charges from the Mayor’s Office either considered personal ($3,689.34); “miscellaneous,” which were personal purchases flagged for reimbursement ($17,723.04); or questionable ($2,271.03). The transactions the audit labeled as “personal” and miscellaneous were paid back.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.