Hawaii attorney general vows full accountability in local bribery probe

HONOLULU (CN) — Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez said Friday that a criminal investigation into public corruption is underway, as the state reckons with fallout from a federal bribery case that already sent two former lawmakers to prison and now implicates Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke.

The scandal began with a yearslong federal investigation into bribery at the highest levels of Hawaii’s state government. Former state Representative Ty Cullen and former Senate Majority Leader Kalani English were convicted of accepting bribes from Milton Choy, a Honolulu wastewater company owner, between 2014 and 2021.

English was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison. Cullen received a lighter two-year sentence in exchange for cooperating with federal investigators. Choy died in federal custody in June 2024.

As part of that cooperation, Cullen secretly recorded conversations with other officials while working as an FBI informant. One of those recordings became the seed of the current state investigation.

A sealed federal court filing revealed that in January 2022, Cullen attended a dinner with a lobbyist and an unidentified influential state legislator, during which the lobbyist purportedly handed the legislator roughly $35,000 in cash to be used in an existing campaign.

The identity of that legislator has never been disclosed. But this week, Luke publicly acknowledged she may be the person described in that filing. The former state lawmaker confirmed she attended a dinner with Cullen and lobbyist Tobi Solidum on Jan. 20, 2022.

She said she later accepted $10,000 in campaign contributions from Solidum and his daughter, then returned the money two months later after Cullen and English pleaded guilty in the federal case. She denied receiving the $35,000 in cash. The Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission has since opened a separate inquiry into whether campaign finance laws were broken.

During her news conference Friday, Lopez updated the public on the state’s own investigation, which she opened after reaching an agreement with federal prosecutors to transfer their evidence to her office.

“We have already issued multiple subpoenas and completed several interviews,” she said. “The criminal investigation must be conducted methodically and carefully.”

She declined to name anyone under investigation or say whether a crime had been committed.

“I cannot name names,” she said. “I cannot tell you what evidence we’ve received, and I can’t tell you whether or not a crime has been committed. Revealing this information could jeopardize not only the rights of the suspect or suspects of this investigation, but the entire case.”

The investigation is being handled by the state’s Special Investigations and Prosecutions division, a unit the Hawaii legislature created in 2022 specifically to handle public corruption cases. Lopez identified supervising deputy David Van Acker as the lead prosecutor, supported by a team of two deputy attorneys general, two investigators and two analysts.

She rejected calls for an outside special prosecutor, saying no legal mechanism for one exists under Hawaii law. She also noted that the governor, who appointed her, cannot remove her from office, and that she has shared nothing with Governor Josh Green beyond what has already been made public.

“The governor appoints me and the Senate confirms me,” she said. “Once that’s done, I have prosecutorial independence.”

Lopez acknowledged the pressure created by Hawaii’s August primary elections, in which several officials connected to the scandal are expected to appear on the ballot. She said her team is working to resolve the investigation before then but pushed back on suggestions that politics are driving the pace.

“I have not received that pressure,” she said.

Lopez pledged to provide public updates every two weeks, though she cautioned that some updates may contain nothing new.

“If a crime has been committed, I will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law,” she said. “I assure the people of Hawaii, we are taking this seriously. I ask for some patience.”

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