 Ling Gallant, and I'm with Books, Books, Books, a live streaming series through Think Tech, Hawaii on Oahu. Here's where we're going to talk about books, everything from reading them to writing them and everything in between. I have a very special guest today, and of course, I say that every time, but today I really, really, really mean it. I have Alexander Ali Silvert, the federal defense attorney here in Houlau, retired now, and welcome. Oh, thank you. Aloha. Aloha to you too. Let me tell you a little bit about Ali. He was raised in New York City and Vermont. He was schooled in UCLA, New York University and Boston College Law School, where he obtained his Juris Doctorate degree in 1984. He worked as a state and federal public defender in Philadelphia before moving to Honolulu in 1989 with his wife and three-week-old son to work at the Hawaii Federal Public Defender's Office. He served as first assistant federal public defender from 1992 until his retirement in October of 2020. Congratulations on that. In 2000, he was one of several public defenders, federal public defenders, to be named federal defender of the year by the National Association of Federal Defenders. He currently lectures at the University of Hawaii Richeson School of Law and runs his own private federal criminal law consulting firm in Hawaii. My advice to you, he's the man you want on your side, you find yourself in federal trouble. Ali. I always tell people if you see me, you're in trouble. Well, I would be hopeful if I saw you. You've written a book and I have to say it's a very exciting book and I really encourage people to read it. It's called the Mailbox Conspiracy and this is a case that happened before the bigger one that took over all of Honolulu. Well, all of Hawaii too, because we were all glued to the set trying to understand what was happening. How did people that we trusted so much for our safety and everything, how did they fail us? So why don't you tell us briefly about the Mailbox case and then how it bled into the chief of police and the state, the third-ranked prosecutor. So this book is about Gerard Puana and our investigation in his case, in his defense, which ultimately led to the uncovering of the evidence of Chief Louis Kahloa and his right Catherine Kahloa and how they framed him for a crime that he did not commit. So way back in 2013 Gerard Puana was arrested for allegedly stealing the Mailbox belonging to Catherine Kahloa and Chief Louis Kahloa and I was appointed to represent him in federal court on the charge of destruction and stealing of the Mailbox because a Mailbox is a federal object and the stealing of it is a federal crime. So what this book recounts is our investigation in his defense, which led us to uncovering all of the evidence that he had been framed, framed by Louis Kahloa, framed by Catherine Kahloa and framed by a number of secretive police officers of the CIU unit which all is a kind of a black ops police unit within HPD that reports to and works for the chief. So the entire story in the first part of the book is all about that investigation and even though we all know in the end who did it and then he was framed, I walk you through everything we uncovered as if it's a who done it, as if it's like a murder mystery. Yes and I have to say you've done a very good job with that too because I didn't know, I mean you know when a case is going on you don't hear a lot of evidence, you don't hear a lot of prior actions that are being held against someone or are pending on someone, so you don't get to hear about all that and how it affects the case that's currently in operation that are being tried. So why take this case? It's a Mailbox is stolen. What? Come on, come on a Mailbox. What made you, what was so intriguing about this case that made you take a Mailbox case? So as first assisted in the office, I'm the person who gets all the cases coming in and I assigned the cases and I took the case exactly because I had the same reaction that you just had. What the heck is a Mailbox case doing in federal court? And when this case came in and I had been a federal attorney for many many years by that point, I was like wait a second, what is this? This is very unusual and you know in our business we do the same types of cases over and over and over again, drug cases, bank robberies, Ponzi schemes. When this came in I had that same reaction and was like wow this is strange and odd and when I found out that the Mailbox that was stolen belonged to the chief of police and his prosecutor wife, I was like well this is intriguing so I assigned the case to myself. Okay so the plot thickened when it became the chief of police I imagine, but Joroy is sitting in front of you and you admit in your novel that you weren't really sure about him. He's a little nervous, he's spilling the beans, he's talking fast, he's giving you way more than you're asking for, you're trying to slow him down, you're trying to decide what is all of this really about? Yeah many you know as a longtime criminal defense attorney I have many many clients who come in and give me a story that they want me to believe in or say they're completely innocent when the evidence is overwhelming so I'm kind of used to defendants coming in and not really telling me the truth and Gerard kind of came in and told me this bizarre story of why he didn't do it and why he was being framed and it was it was very unbelievable in the beginning and it took a while for him to win me over even though I'm his defense attorney to really understand and appreciate what really was going on. Right because you have handled two cases that were near-death penalty cases as well so you're not you're not you don't shy away from the bigger cases and you know. No I've handled some very big cases in Hawaii, a mailbox case would not be considered one of them but it turned out to be the most important case I've ever handled. Isn't that something I mean the mailbox was the pivotal piece that went on to expose something much greater. So it also was the result of Catherine Pailoha who was the granddaughter of Florence the niece of Gerard. Right Florence was by Gerard a condo so she would have to refinance her house in order to do that and then Catherine took power of attorney and then it went downhill from there. Now Florence and Gerard eventually filed a civil case against Catherine but she won. How did I do not understand how she could win this and be awarded $600,000. Right the stunning event in this whole bizarre twisted case is that Poana's had filed a civil lawsuit in state court against Catherine Kailoa claiming that she had stole all this money from them improperly and then we believe you know Catherine had framed Gerard in our criminal case in order to get him convicted of a felony offense to help her win the civil case because if you have a felony conviction for a case like this you could that could be used to impeach your credibility as a witness and she would then be able to destroy Gerard's Poana credibility at the civil case which she desperately needed to win and what happened was as people know in December of 2014 we had a mistrial because Louis Kailoa blurted out something improper in court during his testimony but the civil case went on in state court and in February of 2015 Catherine took takes to stand in the civil case apparently lies throughout her entire testimony and convinces the jury that she's telling the truth and she wins. Not only do the Poanas lose their lawsuit the jury actually awards punitive damage to Catherine Kailoa and the Poanas are ordered to pay over $600,000 in damages to Catherine for impugning her integrity. I know that is so that was so shocking to me it really was I mean and like I said this is things that you don't learn about when you get into the bigger case because I don't think you could bring them in is that correct you couldn't bring this information in. Right for the case in my case it wouldn't be relevant but then we know that subsequently what happened was the FBI gets involved the special prosecutor gets involved and they charge Louis and Catherine Kailoa with using their official positions to frame an innocent man and that's what in the end exonerated Gerard cleared Florence's name and got the civil suit reversed so they never had to pay the money the sad part is while the civil suit was reversed and the Poanas didn't have to pay that money to Catherine they never won the civil suit they never got Catherine to pay her them back for the money she had stolen from them. Yes so they're at the money Gerard is being charged with stealing this mailbox can we see a picture of the mailbox this would be the Kailo has mailbox at their home there's the mailbox and you are very instrumental here when it came to this mailbox and for the sake of the book I kind of don't want to talk about the wonderful thing that you did with this mailbox I want people to read the book I really do because it is what I what I especially loved about it is how you were able to break everything down and not put it in such legal ease that for those of us who are lay people we can understand and follow it thoroughly because there are there are petitions going back and forth and civil cases going back and forth and you know all this traffic happening that it's it would be hard to follow it if you hadn't have written this book in plain English to us to understand what that untangles the whole mess because Catherine apparently really had her hands in a lot of things right in other people's lives and the way she could manipulate and get people to trust her and to do some bidding for her right absolutely we uncovered a whole lot bunch of different pieces of evidence about Catherine that never actually made it into the trial or wouldn't have but little threads of different things that she was involved in and she had her fingers in a lot of different things and mostly improperly so it was a mess and what we tried you know what I tried very hard to do in this book because there is a lot of legal concepts throughout the book is explained in lay English so that anybody could understand and that's actually something I work very hard at in the book so that anyone could read it and I think it does read very well and when it comes to legal parts you'll learn a lot about law you'll learn a lot about defense strategy and how we prep for witnesses and how we subpoena things but I think it's broken down in a simple way and it actually makes it a lot of fun to read. Yes and I actually think because I'm facing a case myself not that I did anything but I'm having to I'm on the victim end of it and and of course the courtroom scares me to death so even reading this gives me some reassurances as well you know I get a little bit of insight of how the court operates because we don't spend days in in the courtroom as as regular people you know we just don't and it's a foreign place and it can be frightening and bigger than bigger than you can imagine so especially when you know depending on the situation of the case so I read it um uh that viewpoint of having to walk into a courtroom myself someday soon and also because I followed this case you know it was on the news nightly and a lot of people did so thank you for writing I think you did a really good job of it I I do have some questions for you um I'm trying to move down real quick well we've already answered that one so I can't ask that one um the federal case is continuing the federal case happened so tell me how this case of the mailbox led into the federal case against the K. Aloha's well so far what we've seen is uh you know Mr. Wheat who's a special prosecutor from Washington uh from San Diego California who was appointed by the United States Attorney General came in to investigate he spent two years investigating the K. Aloha's before he charged them and that was in 2017 and then another two years before that case went to trial and it's the K. Aloha case that everybody knows about because by then everybody was paying attention um it was the Poana case that kind of set that up um so as we all know they were eventually convicted but that investigation by Mr. Wheat led to now further charges against uh Catherine K. Aloha's brother Dr. Poana which is on trial right now in federal court it also has read led to the indictments against uh Donna Leon and Roya Mamia and Max Sword which is still pending uh and it appears that the grand jury is still going on and that there are other people uh who probably will be indicted in the near future high up in the Honolulu government so this is a a situation where uh the initial spark to get that grand jury going has really uncovered a whole series of things that have yet to come out and so it's it's kind of uh it's always the cover-up you know we all talk about you know the cover-up and we've seen it in national politics we've seen it in Watergate we've seen in other big events it's the cover-up and it it seems to be the same thing that's happening here is you know even if you didn't commit a crime if you're questioned about it and you lie about it to cover up what you think you may have done wrong then that's a crime in itself and so we're kind of seeing that unfold in these charges that have been coming up right now um Leong I think was just in the news last week right where over the $250,000 that Chief Louis K. Aloha was awarded when he retired so can you talk about that well I don't have firsthand information about that but what we do know of course publicly is uh when all this came out I had been calling for a reform you know after the mistrial you know for the police commission to be reformed for the city and county government to take action for there to be more accountability and more transparency in government and the police commission did everything but that at that point they didn't want to hear the evidence that we had they didn't want to really look into it Mr. Wheat began to look into it and he believes that through the charging document that the $250,000 that was paid to Chief K. Aloha to get him to retire uh wasn't proper in some manner illegal in some manner and he's charged that so that's what that case is about it's not directly about the Poana case but it is an outgrowth of it because the city and county wanted to get rid of Chief K. Aloha and they paid him to leave correct I have a viewer question here that's very interesting how did the city of Honolulu allow the K. Aloha to get away with all of this without anyone questioning people talk the book begins at the top you know my book in the second part of the book I do discuss the failure of the city and county of Honolulu various oversight agencies to have stopped this because this was preventable and many agencies oversight agencies in city and county government didn't do its job look the other way and unfortunately many lawyers who had information who knew what was going on in terms of different aspects of Catherine K. Aloha's life wouldn't report her they were afraid to tell on her or other officers beneath Louie K. Aloha didn't want to say anything so it really was an atmosphere where for many years nobody would say anything and unfortunately and I again write about this in the book you know we had an opportunity after the K. Aloha's were indicted and after they were convicted and sentenced to make changes to make real changes in government and I think we missed to a great extent that chance yes well Catherine K. Aloha was quite powerful herself as a state prosecutor under Kanashiro so you know she had her hands in pretty far as well right yeah I mean for myself I think this whole the whole mailbox frame up was orchestrated by her I think it was much more orchestrated by her than by Louie K. Aloha I do believe once Louie K. Aloha found out about it he was all in to cover it up and to protect his wife and to protect his officers but it was really Catherine and yes her fingers are all over this and they're all over a lot of different things as well and she she did what she could from her side and with people that she knew and he did things with people on his side to frame Gerard and try to get him responsible for all this another question is what about the police commission and the county council they know that again goes to the $250,000 pay off and you know as Loretta Sheehan who was police commissioner at the time tried you know she was saying we shouldn't pay him off and let him retire in good standing we should just fire him and unfortunately that was not done and so there's this interplay going on between the police commission many of who are doing the bidding of the city and county administration and city council which was trying to get involved but was basically brushed off okay there was a huge fallout from all of this huge fallout starting with Catherine K. Aloha and Chief Police Chief Lewis K. Aloha uh let's see I'm trying to get down to I have all year I wrote down your chronological and I didn't write it down I printed it of course it was I mean the book alone is worth just having for the the back part of it to see how everything panned out here because the sentences were very interesting uh Catherine is remanded into custody okay I'm still not there it's it's pretty amazing well maybe you remember oh here it is Catherine K. Aloha was sentenced to 13 years in prison correct that's correct Lewis K. Aloha to seven why was he so much less do you think well so this is a little difficult to explain but so it's in federal court we have statutes statutes are written by congress that tell us what the crime is and it can so for example bank robbery you could get up to 20 years in prison but the judge can give you anything the judge can give you probation a day in jail a year in jail anything up to 20 years we then have these very complicated sentencing guidelines which are tell a judge you know a much more narrow range of what the sentence should be and in this case what happened was unfortunately the jury had different means and manners of a conspiracy to decide what these people had done what what conspiracy had they committed and the jury checked off obstruction of justice not civil rights violation and as a result of that the guidelines were actually lower than they should have been because of civil rights violation is a much worse offense than just obstruction of justice and it wasn't the jury's fault they just weren't instructed correctly and didn't understand what they were supposed to do or could do and as a result of that when the judge went to sentencing the guidelines that were before him were lower than they could have been so actually under those guidelines the KLO has got hit hard at the top of the guidelines so it was a severe sentence okay if we could see the graphic with the police tree where it shows all of the people involved on this is on the KLO side on the left and the KUANA people on the right is that correct or as I can say that that's correct on the right you had two police officers who agreed to cooperate against the KLO as and the other defendants and both of those in police officers are already pled guilty okay and the other ones received various forms of punishment and jail time or probation that's correct almost everybody in the case got jail time all of the people who were under the defendants list got jail time um mr cellars did not uh mr silva got a few months yes okay well the case goes on so are you gonna write a second book I have a title for you what's the title I'm always open to suggestions mailbox conspiracy part two postmarks postmarks from the beyond there you go because people are still having I mean the case is cases are still happening and it's still very much out there and this ended what year this ended in 2021 about then your book your book ends in September of 2021 that's correct after all the sentences after all and you had to testify for what three days in this oh no I testified just for five hours in the KLO a case felt like three days um and you know when you were talking about you know help you through you know understanding federal court and your experience that you're going through when I testified in this case for the prosecution against the KLOs that was the first time I ever testified in a criminal trial because I'm a defense lawyer I'm always the one cross-examining witnesses but I'm not one who testifies so that was my first time ever turning around facing the courtroom and testifying so there was a unique experience for me so in the book I kind of relay what that feeling was like for every what it's like to be a witness yes well I'm happy to say we were not able to cover everything in the book I'm really happy to say that because I really endorse this this this book I think I think everyone should read it it's you know it's a local situation and um and it's ongoing everybody should be informed about it so tell us what's ahead for you you're going you're now retired you're going you're going into authorship you have one novel under I mean I have two myself so I know how much hard work this is I know how much hard work this is so what's on your agenda well I am I am teaching at the law school so I'm I'm enjoying that I'm teaching a trial advocacy course so it's a lot of fun I do have a small consulting firm of my own and I am looking forward to writing more books it may not necessarily be on cases although I have several cases I could write about but I am looking forward to writing more books yes and you know you say you have other cases you could write about I'm that was one of the questions I originally had in my head going into this was why write about this one you know yeah you know this is one of those cases where if it wasn't true you wouldn't believe it because it's so odd the twists and turns are so unbelievable that it's just amazing that this really happened uh so writing the book as I once said to somebody it was it was easy to write in the sense that it was all true so I was just recounting things that had happened but trying to make it interesting and learning how to write and learning how to grab readers and learning how to make the law easy to understand was really the hard part of the book but the facts in the book and what happened are bizarre they're almost keystone coppish but it's all true yes and and I I'll vouch for that because I read it I'm a voracious reader and I read this I slowed way down to read this because of I was going to be conducting the interview but I could not put it down well thank you I could not put it down so well done kudos and all of that we have just uh under a minute left and I do want to thank you for being on the show ollie books books books and I we so totally appreciate that you've written this this wonderful novel for everyone I'd like to thank also the studio the technicians the staff jay fidel our producer our underwriters where would it be without you and also our viewers we can't thank you enough you can find my work on amazon or you can look at my blog elaine gallant blog dot wordpress.com and that's all we have for today ollie thank you so much you're welcome and much success to you all right thank you for having me on thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo