HONOLULU — The lawyer representing Honolulu’s ex-police chief in a corruption trial is trying to show jurors his client wasn’t involved in his wife’s family financial dispute that U.S. prosecutors say led the couple to frame a relative.
Now-retired chief Louis Kealoha and his wife Katherine Kealoha, a former city prosecutor, are accused of framing her uncle Gerard Puana for stealing their mailbox to discredit him in the dispute.
Under questioning by the ex-chief’s attorney, Rustam Barbee, Puana said Thursday Louis Kealoha wasn’t at any family meetings about the dispute.
Puana and his mother sued Katherine Kealoha claiming she stole money from them in a reverse mortgage scheme. Puana says they didn’t sue Louis Kealoha.
Puana says his niece’s husband didn’t attend any of the 2014 trial for the lawsuit.