 Now we're back, we're live for the four o'clock block. I'm Jay Fidel. I love doing this and I love doing it with Ian Linn too. He's the reporter's reporter, investigative reporter. What a guy. I admire you so much. And thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. We're going to talk about the evidence coming out of the MISCII case. That's the Michael MISCII case. Michael, Michael MISCII case junior, as I recall. He's a junior. That's correct. And he got into some trouble with georganized crime and a whole crime ring using his Kama'aina termite company as a cover and they got him. They got him and they're prosecuting him. And the prosecutor here is Kenji Price, a Trump appointee, but a terrific prosecutor. Good experience and motivated. And you've been covering it in a number of stories. So can you give us the thread about what's going on in that prosecution? Well, I'll try. Here's the quick once-over. It was in July of 2020 that FBI agents raided a house in Kailua at 4 a.m. and along with several other locations in Honolulu, they arrested Michael MISCII, owner of Kama'aina termite, Kama'aina plumbing, and a host of other companies. They were indicted on a 22-count indictment. The broad umbrella is a charge that they were part of a racketeering conspiracy. There are 11 defendants. 10 of them are alleged to have been part of this racketeering conspiracy. All of them were then alleged to have taken part in one or another of a series of serious crimes that are charged in this indictment, ranging from murder for hire, kidnapping, armed robbery, bank fraud, you name it, it's in there, extensive drug dealing from methamphetamine and cocaine to opioids. There are four capital offenses, I believe, that Mike Miskey is charged with. That's a potential capital punishment case. The government has not decided whether it's going to pursue that Hawaii's estate without capital punishment, and it's would pose political problems. But anyway, that's the seriousness of the charges. Well, let me just offer a thought about the environment for all of this. Hawaii, low crime rate. Hawaii, people follow the rules in general. Hawaii doesn't have or it hasn't had in a while any organized crime that I know of. And here's an organized crime ring happening in our midst and doing the worst things that organized crime, that organized crime, arguably, allegedly, the worst crimes that organized crime does. Right here, right here in Hawaii, that's very, that's very threatening, and especially at a time when at least the county prosecutor, city and county prosecutor, and its office was in a black hole for so many years under the K Aloha scandal and prosecution. So here we find that I guess it must have been the FBI investigated, and maybe other agencies too, and we find that the prosecutor is finally prosecuting. But what it tells me is that this has got to be a series of crimes, those 22 indictments, that have been taking place over a long period of time, and we really didn't know about it. And the government alleges that the overall conspiracy directed by Mike Miski has been going on since the late 1990s. And if that's so, it would have been with a succession of partners or associates he worked with. What I see this case as is an opportunity to open a window onto what is the state of organized crime in Hawaii. It's something that only comes along maybe every 10 years or even more. There's a big federal case like this, and they go in and we get a trial and we get to see the evidence that's been collected that tells us what's been going on in that last decade. And this is our, this is our chance for this decade I don't clearly these things were going on we just didn't know about them. And one of the problem is that local police and local prosecutors, they're dealing with a crimes committed the police are called someone is arrested they sent to the prosecutor the prosecutor decides if there's the evidence, if there is they go to court. Whereas the federal government can look and say, here's a problem. Let's investigate it. Let's see who the players are let's take our time. In this case, this investigation has been going on a minimum of six years. I believe it had to have been started by around 2014. In the, in the course of that, the government recently disclosed they have collected and turned over to the defense attorneys now 450 gigabytes of digital files. And some 30 something DVDs containing recordings, video recordings audio recordings wiretaps photos and so on. So it's a huge accumulation of evidence they've made in the course of this, of this investigation. And they've alleged, many things are alleged in the indictment but they're not charged things like extortion money laundering employment fraud, you know, paying people for fake for not doing jobs or paying people with cash to avoid taxes. A whole slew of offenses, as I say that are not charged but are alleged. The whole enchilada why would they allege them but not charge them. I'm sure it's because they don't need to they have the serious ones that ones that are going to count. And the other charges would just be wasting their resources I guess. But they'll I assume they'll use them to show the pattern of conduct. In this case much of a violent conduct undertaken by this group of people, allegedly under the direction of Mr miski. So just cut off the head of the snake I mean let's assume. And I do want to explore it step by step but let's assume that this puts them out of commission closes them down. This is this alleviate the problem for the community or does this suggest there are other organized crime rings out there that are doing the same thing. You know, always a town where there's a lot of money flowing around sloshing around in various private and public projects. And I just don't think that you get that concentration of resources without someone figuring out a way to make a quick buck or an illegal off of it. So, no I think it could change the picture for a while. It's probably put a crimp in the drug supply for a while, but it, you know, just like previous drug bust major drug busts here. It doesn't put an end to the drug problem. The other thing it seems to show is that is that one of these things go with the other in other words if I find that there's drugs for example. There's all these ancillary crimes, like the murder for hire and you know the, all the fraudulent stuff that was happening around. It's never just one thing. We talked about organized crime we're talking about all kinds of ancillary other crimes. Am I right. Yeah, and traditionally, this the current case is somewhat different from traditional Hawaii organized crime. You know traditionally what did you have you had crime groups that control prostitution. They control gambling, they control drugs, and then they fought over what territories they would, they would hold. And in this case there's no evidence in the record so far that the miski group was involved in prostitution, or involved in gambling, except in. They were the government alleges a series of cases in which they attacked the operators of gambling operations gaming rooms or gaming activities and made off with their money. They attacked other drug dealers and made off of money in one case allegedly with the five pounds of methamphetamine that they took and then split up and sold as their own. So it's a. It's a traditional group and it's untraditional in the sense that his companies were well known. Right after every, your newspapers came with it wrapped around the newspaper or in your mid week and comma on a termite. Everyone knew it. The government alleges that behind that they use the company, both as a headquarters for their criminal activities, but also to provide, for example, in one case, government specifically alleges that one person got out of prison was working and he had to report to his probation officer or parole officer. And so they jimmied up fake paychecks to show that oh yes he's employed and working here and where he was really doing was furthering the work of the this conspiracy. So what kind of crowd do we have here I mean, are you able to say what brought them together what with a high school chums. And where do we know each other and where do they come from and who are they. Well, the core is really. Miski miski's father dive and he was only six. And he went to live with his mother who was local. And they, then the family ended up in my Manolo a bunch of relatives are in my Manolo. And as a young man, you know, 1920 21 year old. He was arrested with one cousin, another cousin was sent away for 25 years on drug charges. The organization that's been charged includes one brother includes several cousins. Someone who was married formerly married to his aunt. There's a lot of family relationships in here. But then also he worked he lived on the streets as a young man. Came from came out of one Manolo lived on the streets in Kailua got into trouble there right away was a repeat offender as a felon before he was 21. So, how old is he now. He is about 40 47 some of the top of my head I can't say but I think it's about 47. And was he the founder the organizer of the termite company. I mean, is that his company. His company. He, while out on probation. In the late 90s, he got a job with another termite company, a lot of termite company. He was a kid. He learned the business, apparently, from a lot of termite. And when his probation was up somewhere, it's still not clear where he got the resources to start his own termite company, which he did. And in pretty short order turned around and began trying out other companies. So I say he must have a list of 15 18 companies that many most of them started never went anywhere and close they may have been fronts for something they may have been, you know, hiding transactions for one particular deal. But most of them faded away but the termite company stayed and the plumbing company is still alive. Actually his businesses are dead. They've lost their licenses their businesses are closed their business records were seized by the federal government. They're not coming back. But that's many of the some of the people involved who ran those companies. They are still licensed and in business. You know, one of the issues you mentioned that which was in the last article I saw that you wrote is this whole thing about how the government may turn over its evidence to the defense, which it has a legal obligation to do but not to the media, not to the public. Can you talk about that and what's the balancing of equities on an issue like that. Well, eventually, as I'm learning now researching related cases that from the past, eventually when these cases go to trial a lot of evidence becomes available. And some of it will will leak out in other ways along the way. And in this case what we're seeing now is the federal government has spent the last three or, well, let me let me back up. Originally this was a drug case. There was a first indictment in 2019, a year before the indictment when he was arrested that first indictment charged simply Mike miski and one other person with financing, a major drug deal. Allegedly he put up $400,000 to buy about 20 pounds of cocaine in California and bring it back to Hawaii. That indictment was kept secret. That indictment was then used though, to begin to work on other people who were part of his drug network, and they, the government has now produced at least four. I think maybe five people who have now pled guilty on drug charges originally, and then they have entered into plea agreements that recognize their role in his criminal organization, broader criminal organization, and at least one of those people had been had been arrested in 2005 served 10 years or so in federal prison, got out, got a new job with Mike miski, and was given a lot of work to do, including attempting to organize and arrange the murder of several people. Only, only one of those people was murdered. In fact, but he has now turned states witness and reached a plea deal just a month ago to testify for the state. So that's, they've been very busy at finding people all the way up the chain from lower street level people to middle dealers to top level people who had access to him and can testify about miski's own conduct. It's just like in the movies, just like in the movies, trying to flip the witness. And you started the outer circles and work your way in and that's what they've done very successfully so far. And they imply the government implies there are more people who have not yet been identified who will testify who have and well testify. So that that is one of the considerations I suppose and the balancing of the, the equities on whether to reveal the evidence they have accumulated with the media with with the prayer with the public seems to me that with that would be against distributing it, publishing it because then they're not able to follow that track of flipping witnesses am I right. Right. We're pretty far along now. At this point. Information has been buried in relatively obscure court filings I mean their filings in this case and in related cases in which the government gives some details about a number of these episodes both things that are charged and things that are not charged but are alleged. And in those documents where I it's where I found things. You know I started just looking up anybody he had associations with in court cases, going back 10 or 12 years. And so it brought me to finding the people who've been flipped in the last three years, getting arrested on drugs and then worked into confessing their role in the, in the miski organization. Yeah one of the things you mentioned this. I don't know it's troubling I think to just an outsider. I mean every man is the thing about murder for hire and I wonder how, how that works here in Hawaii I mean there have been strange murders over the years and I'm sure that murder for hire is not a complete stranger of the Hawaii criminal community but I just wonder how that works for example, you what you offend somebody. You have a bad deal with somebody you owe some money and didn't pay it. And then, and somebody hires somebody like, like miski or allegedly doing the things miski does and goes after you and tries to tries to murder you with impunity. I mean, who, who are the targets of this kind of activity. In his case, the government has disclosed one target was someone who he suspected of being a government informant. And in that case several people armed, hid outside the person's house, waiting for him to come out so they could kill him, and he didn't come out. But then after that for whatever reason, it was not pursued. And we don't, you know, we don't know why. Another case was in the news in the last, actually last summer, Lindsay Kenny, who had worked on the movie sets were miski who had worked and several of his other insiders worked. In this case, he miski allegedly approached Lindsay Kenny to kill Jonathan Frazier, who was the his miski son's best friend. They were both in the car that crashed in November 2015 miski son eventually died four months later of injuries from the crash, Jonathan Frazier survived. With no evidence. In fact, counter to all the evidence that was available, alleged that Jonathan Frazier had been the driver of the car and then so it's responsible for his son's death. And the government alleges that as a result, miski arranged or paid for his his kidnapping and murder, and the disposal of his of his remains. At least that's that's the allegation on the others. I think it's three other cases where there are no details have been provided so far about who these were that had been targeted to be killed. I suspect most of them at that point were were people who he suspected were helping the government and and putting their case together. The government records show that since at least 2015 the end of 2015 around the same time his son had this car accident. There was already active federal pursuit of him. By 2016, he had he hired a high, high powered defense attorney, and in court filings. Her attorney has claimed that his banks were saying they're working to do business with him anymore apparently because the government was subpoenaing records. The IRS was part of the investigative task force. I involved the IRS, the ATF on drug drug agents drug enforcement at FBI, and who else. I'm sure there's somebody a homeland security. So, it's been an extensive investigation but here we are. Where are we in so evidence has been accumulated accumulating and they have been accumulating. At some point it's going to be a trial where are we on the continuum to that. The trial because of COVID what has been post continued until I believe it's September of this year, but you know that's not going to happen. Everything else is backlog. This is going to remain backlogged as well. The recently there's been a skirmish over how much access. Mr miski should have while he's in the Federal Detention Center to computers and other things that his lawyers say he needs in order to review the 450 gigabytes of records to assist them assist in his own defense. That skirmish is still ongoing. And that would delay the trial anyway even if COVID didn't. Yes, yeah, it's just, it's a mass, a massive complex prosecution. That must just put put real pressure on the defense attorneys to to cope with all its angles and all its factual allegations. Well, it sounds like he has miski has enough money to hire high high price attorneys and they can handle it and they will whether the storm I suppose in the end and go through the trust any suggestions to the commentary, the country. Yeah, when, when he was arrested and they swept in they, they confiscated the business bank accounts as well as his personal bank accounts. There's been nothing in the record yet about which personal accounts might have been released to him, except there was a discussion of his and money in an escrow account from the sale of one property, which would net him a couple $100,000. But apart from that is, it's unclear the government says that he must have lots of money at his disposal. It sounds like though they haven't found all of it. They've, but but they have closed down his businesses where much of his money was. So it's unclear how much, how much remaining he still has a house that's worth six or $7 million. And a number of other real properties that are in his name. And on the government side, you know, I recall in the in the stealth bomber case, I don't know if you covered that at all back about 10 years 12 years ago, this fellow stole the plans for the US design of the stealth bomber to China. And he actually never got paid. We had the prosecutor on think tank and he told us the prosecutorial, you know, a view of all of that is very interesting. But one thing was clear is if the United States attorney wants to go after you, he has unlimited resources to do that. He has all those agencies that worked on the investigation. You may have an assistant US attorney that is brought in just for the trial from Washington, whatever. And he can spend as much time as he needs to. It's, it's not the same as an offense council. Now one of the things that is unanswered and disappointingly so. I was one of those who hoped and saw hints that it would happen that that this prosecution would disclose the relationships between those and political and and social power in town and groups like miskeys operating below the surface. As I say, there have been hints that along the way that there were these ties and these relationships with the KLO is for example, but none of that is yet in the record or any hint of that in the files. So whether there will be a new superseding indictment that takes us farther into the heart of that political world or not remains to be seen. Well, I mean, just following the movie culture on it is likely if you have an enterprise of any magnitude you have to buy off some politicians to protect yourself may find it and you may not find it until the last minute because I'm getting from this discussion that the government does not have to disclose indictments. It can be secret, essentially no. They can until until they're actually acted on. So, you know, this all reminds me and I wonder if you covered it at the time of the Rothman enterprise back 2030 years ago. My time. As a reporter, at least. Okay, but you remember the case I'm talking. Oh yes. So what's what's the. Yeah, well, you know, he was doing a lot of stuff for us, but I don't know what happened to him. He was alive and well on the North Shore. I'm told, did he escape the escape prosecution. Serious prosecution. He's not like, like some of miski's friends who have gone away from the long term. Yeah. So, at a trial of this nature, it sounds to me like these these witnesses who have flipped they're going to be testifying. It sounds like there'll be a lot of witnesses, it'll be, you know, months, months long trial. Sure. And it'll, it'll be a previous process and the jury and be a federal jury and paneled on it. And they'll be told that they're going to have to spend months listening to the evidence and, and so forth. That is a major, major experience isn't it. We don't have too many trials like that. We don't know we don't. For obvious reasons. Yeah, it's just, it's a organizing it both for the prosecution and the defense is just a horrendous job, even just explaining it. Like it's very much like the klo case, their original mailbox case went on for a long time this is going to dwarf it. Yes. Yes. And it's much more serious because it involves capital crimes. The other thing is, you know, from a political point of view, Kenji Price is a Republican. I believe he's a good US attorney. And the likelihood is, I don't know if you've studied this but likelihood is that he'll be replaced with a new administration because that's usually what happens. It'll be rare that an incoming administration, you know, stands by the appointment of the previous administration, especially when the parties are different like this. So it'll be someone else. And my guess is, well, likely it'll be somebody from this community and may not be the same kind of personality as Kenji Price. I don't know if that is likely to change the zeal with which the US attorney approaches the case. Any thoughts on that. You know, Kenji Price is the administrator up at the top. He's not one of the US attorneys handling the case. So I thought those people, those people aren't political appointees. They stay in place. They're doing their jobs. I think whoever comes in is going to ride that horse to the end. You know, there's it's too far gone. It's too far into the public domain right now for it to be dropped. From a career point of view, seems to me like a case like this is really a critical case for the careers of the individual prosecutors who are involved. And they will make or break their careers depending on the results here. It's important for the careers that they win to say, you know, I don't know what winning is in a case like this, but that they arguably win. Well, I'm told that in federal court, the defendants rarely win. It's by the time it gets to trial on a federal case. 9598% of people are convicted, if they haven't already pled guilty along the way. You know, trying to beat a case like case like this is going to be difficult, especially for the central players. There may be some of the people who are more peripheral in the group who could, you know, they could walk away. But I don't see any of the, any of the central players. You know, unless there's been some, some huge mistake that is not obvious. I mean, it's not going to be good news for anybody's sitting in that courtroom. Now, and what about, you know, the possibility of copying a plea here. My guess is that the government is not likely to do that if it has a good case it's not going to, it's not going to entertain those negotiations is that is that possible has it been discussed is it is it on the horizon. Oh, I think they very much like to avoid having to go to a complicated trial if they could get everybody to plead. And I mean, at least the rumor mill says they've been trying to get miski himself to flip against someone higher up than him and I don't know who that would be. But, you know, rumor mills follow that talk. And whether that's true or not, you know, your guess is as good as mine. They have flipped several other people, including some who were clearly potential defendants in this case. And there may be some among the defendants named in these and this indictment, who have agreed to testify at a future date. That's the government says that maybe the case. Well, you know they can use him to flip against someone higher up on the chain, or maybe a supplier maybe the supplier of the 20 pounds of cocaine from California. Maybe somebody, some politician who took money from him, whose name is not come out yet. You go up you go upstream right. Right. But in this case, you know, I'm getting getting something in return is not going to mean anybody's going to walk. I mean, some of them might only get 10 years instead of 40 years. You know, we're talking relative, relative benefits here. We're not talking freedom. Any chance of a pardon. Well, you know, I doubt it very much. I don't think he's on that list. I don't think so. So in the federal in the federal criminal practice usually the judge is assigned to the outset and in the federal system and he stays he stays on the case throughout from the beginning to the end. Who's the judge. Who's the judge in this case. I think these are going now to judge Watson. They have made some they did change a little bit along the way and some things have gone and much of it's still at the magistrates stage at this point. There's so there's still the pretrial things that are down, haven't come up to the judges yet filtering their way up. Right, you have the magistrate makes all the evidentiary rulings and discovery rulings and so forth. I've been covering this over a period of time how long have you been covering it how many articles have you written. What what aspects of it have you covered. Well I started following misci several years ago when someone called me and said he was lighting up a tree and Hawaii Kai and it had the Hawaii Kai residents up in arms or some Hawaii Kai residents up in arms. That was my first introduction to him. I started, you know, the, because there was a potential crossover to the kloha case which I'd also been following carefully. I started digging into this one as soon as indictments came down. I counted recently and I think I counted 38 articles or blog posts, describing some aspect of this case. You know, just peeling away trying to explain what's happening and what's happening in court or what's happening in the evidence and still trying. I'm still trying to go back and look at the growth of his business empire how he could have financed this. There's evidence of in the in his real estate career for example of money laundering, you know, the often will be the case with real estate transactions. There's a lot of stuff to dig into some of which some of which I'm holding my ammunition for later. Later means that you'll keep on covering it. My guess, you know, from the point of view of what we discussed and the track of this, you know, the points that have come out into the public here. It gets more interesting all the time. And when you get to a trial it's going to be really, really interesting. And so I can't imagine you not continue to come. Without someone to do in my retirement. The gift that keeps on giving. Exactly right. So okay, you know, just to go back to the the principle thing is how worried should we be about this sort of thing. It strikes me that the the murder of his son's friend is very troubling, because it's a vanity murder, it's without any good reason, and all the worst reasons and it means if he doesn't like the way you this kind of criminal, if he doesn't like the way you part your hair, then he could be sending people after you right here in Hawaii. I call it vanity because it doesn't base it's not based in any reality. And so you wonder if that kind of thing exists and we should all be a little concerned you know, like not getting into arguments with the wrong people that sort of thing. If I had known some of these people I would not have wanted to get into arguments with them. But it all, it all affects the public ultimately, whether it's that's because your streets are unsafe or your kids buying dope from somebody who buys dope from the next level who eventually it trickles down from Bob and somebody's organization or someone else's organization. I'm looking at the case now from a few years ago, where it, you know, at the bottom of the chain was a 17 year old high school students still in high school. And he'd been, he'd been working with someone buying buying drugs from someone who got it from somewhere in the miski chain for a year and he was only 17 at the time. And I'm told that's, that's the chain that comes down in neighborhoods all over, at least all over a while. That kids get in trouble kids swander their money and don't pay kids get beaten up kids get threatened families get threatened families get broken up. I think we see the damage all over. Amazingly, to me, miski's defense attorneys made an argument that he should be out on bail and what one of the arguments was they took the murder that you thought was so troubling of his son's best friend. And they said, Well, look, that doesn't show he's violent that's a very special case. You know you got to understand this is a father, a very special emotional case that doesn't show his dangerous generally. And he goes, it basically just goes, you know, it got away from him in that case because of his son. The court rejected the argument. But I thought that signaled what they'll try what their plan to try as one one layer of defense when this gets to court. Yeah, I don't not all first degree murders are the same. So my last question for you and is sure is is the question out of Dustin Hoffman's marathon man. Is it safe. Are we safe is he in jail is his hydra, you know, tamp down in non operating right now or are there elements of it that are still operating. Is there any part of his enterprise that's still alive. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are parts of it. But now they're sort of like the Ronin samurai, they're leaderless. I'm sure there were also rival elements in the organized crime who are glad to see him going down and are offering assistance where they can. That someone who's been ripping off other people's gambling games or other people's drug supply networks has made a lot of enemies along the way. So some of that I'm sure is in play as well. But are we any less safe than when it was all organized. No, I don't. I don't think so. I think people are probably laying low at this point in time. Well, it'll make a great movie on cable I can tell you. The question is only whether whether the producer has to change the names. That's all. Yeah, that's a heck of a story. As I say it's a window into the world we don't see normally. And it's an education we need you and I and everybody else watching this. Yeah, very valuable discussion. Thank you. And thank you for covering it. Thank you for in advance for covering it in the future and I hope you can come back from time to time and give us a pricey on and how it's going. Have no fear I'll be here. Thank you. Extraordinary investigative reporter in Hawaii doing us all great service. Thanks.