 and now welcome back to another fabulous adventure with the Law at Lawson. And it's not hard for me to come up with a lot of material because these fairs keep on investigating all the corruption here in Honolulu. So they actually make the job a little bit easier. But on a serious note, I wanted to bring you the show today, we're gonna talk about some of the investigations that's going on at the federal courthouse, federal grand jury still investigating as we talked about last week. Captain Wheat, Michael Wheat, federal prosecutor from San Diego, along with his team of Avengers are back. They are the prosecutors who prosecuted Louis and Kat K. Aloha. They're also investigating and had a grand jury investigation going on into the, I guess, the retirement, the $250,000 that the city somehow found, I mean, that's just incredible, man. I mean, here you got it. Chief of police is under indictment, been indicted by the fairs. And instead of just leaving him again, suspended or leave with pay, they gave him $250,000 on the condition, him being Louis K. Aloha, that somehow he gets convicted. He would have to pay back the city, Honolulu, right? The $250,000 within six months. Louis got convicted well over a year ago, last June or July, I believe, right? I was there. I mean, I was sitting like three feet from Louis when the jury said guilty. And oh man, I mean, and you know what? You know, sitting in that trial, that whole trial every day, Kat and Louis came to court. You know, this show is supposed to be about this guy, the city manager for Roy Amamea, that got a subject letter and had testified the grand jury last week. I'll get to him in a second. But you know, Louis and Kat throughout that whole trial, right, they came to court every day, right? And matching Aloha where sitting next to each other as the proud couple and all the defendants set there. I mean, we're just such arrogance as if somehow they just knew this jury wasn't going to convict them. That's how I was just like two, three feet away from Louis. I mean, I was sitting right behind you, right? Front row, front row seat when the jury said guilty, right? And Louis, I mean, out of that, so after seeing them for a week after a week coming to court, sitting court, he would lean back in his chair, look at the jury like this, right, in court. And to see that jury come back and say guilty and Louis, like, doubled over, almost like somebody punched him in the gut. All right, so that's just, but anyway, because all this is connected. So keep in mind, again, let's go ahead and show the first slide if we can. So this guy, right here, I'm calling Roy, because this, you know, my students say, Professor Lawson, you really can't pronounce foreign names that good, you know. I have a bad time pronouncing anything with a lot of syllables. So this guy is Roy, I'm a mayor, right? Mayor Kirk Caldwell, second in command. Highest ranking person from Caldwell staff to be entangled in federal investigation. That's something to start advertising, right? But he had to appear before a grand jury. So there's different ways you go to the grand jury. And here's why Roy's lawyer, Roy's lawyer is saying in the paper that they're, let me find it for you. Roy's lawyer said that the government has the power to compel the appearance of a grand jury of anyone who government believes may be, may know anything relevant to this investigation. I'm a mayor's lawyer, Lyle, I can't pronounce his name either. His last name said in a statement Friday that the managing director has not committed any crime. And his designation as a subject of a federal investigation is not a surprise. The government has the power to compel the appearance. Okay, but how does the government compel your appearance? So as we go through these grand jury investigations here in Honolulu, I want you to know when you see on the news that someone got a subject letter or somebody got a target letter from the federal government, what does that mean? Right? Or somebody got a subpoena. And so one way that you can be compelled to go to the grand jury, they just give you a subpoena. You sit in the office one day and this guy comes in and the young lady comes in as your subpoena and says that you've been served. You open it up and it's commanding you to appear before the federal grand jury in downtown Honolulu on a certain date. So if you just get a subpoena, that just, you know, right there that means you're a witness. You still may want to call your lawyer if it's a criminal investigation. But anyway, that, you know, I saw a subpoena and as the slide says, when we talk about, we're going to talk about three things. How to grand jury or how the federal government can compel you to appear in front of a grand jury. That's all going to come by way of subpoena. The first is you're classified as a witness. You get a subpoena as a witness. Right? And that means that you got information about the case. Let's go to the next slide. All right now, this is, yeah, but now remember Keith Connichero and Donna Leon, the city's highest ranking lawyer. And Keith Connichero, our former prosecutor, actually our prosecutor who's on leave. I can't believe he's still our current prosecutor on leave, but he is because he got a target letter. Okay? Now, when we look at this target letter, where does it target? So if, you know, I would be in my office when I was practicing law and I get a call from a client saying, hey attorney Lawson, I got a target letter from the feds. What does that mean? And so we, I'm like, look, me ain't gonna talk over the phone because if you got a target letter, your phone is probably bugged. So you need to come in my office, right? Wiretap, right? And so a target letter is on the opposite end of that spectrum of the witness. Target letter is the most serious letter. Other than the indictment, I mean, the target letter means you just close to indictment, right? And there's a slide talks about at the opposite end of the spectrum of someone classified as a target, right? When the prosecutor deems someone as a target, it means that the government believes that substantial evidence the person has committed a crime. So you have to tell your client, hey man, I serious, get in my office, right? And so they come into your office and we kind of cover this in one of my later classes, earlier classes. Now they come into the office and you have to let them know, hey look, you know, you got a target letter and you can call down to the prosecutor find out what you being the attorney will call down to the prosecutor to find out what's going on. But by no means, do you just, you know, there are some letters, you know, you get bills, you get bills, you get letters from people, you know, you get out this junk mail, you just kind of put them in your junk mail drawer in the kitchen or wherever you do your mail at. You don't want to do that with the target letter because if not sooner or later, you may have the US Marshals coming with an arrest warrant because you've been indicted, right? And so again, it really means what the government is saying is look, we got enough evidence on you to charge you right now. However, we're still doing an investigation. Come on down here and we'll continue to do it, you know, and you testify in front of the grand jury and admit to whatever it is we believe you did, give us more information because we want to see how widespread this criminal activity is. And so these letters are used in like white collar crimes. You know, these target letters, subject letters, which we're going to get to next, subject letters and target letters are used in white collar crimes and organized crime like drug conspiracies, right? And so normally when you get a client, if I had a client calling us in or someone calling that wasn't a client yet saying, you know, I want to talk to you, I may want you to be my lawyer. I got a target letter or a subject letter then I already know without don't send anything else. It either involves a drug conspiracy or it involves some type of white collar crime. And so let's go to the next slide. All right, so Donna Leon remember, she got a target letter too. And so why is it serious? And we kind of talked about that, right? And it's formal notice that you will be called to get tested on your federal grand jury. And so the reason why, you know, this is important is because when I'm a mayor's lawyer saying, well, hey, you know, this is the way the government gets you to come down and talk to the grand jury. You get a subject letter. No, that's not true. The government could have issued a witness subpoena. Right? And so let's go to the next slide real quick. Right? And so now we're talking about, you know, the subject letter, right? And so this is what this is. So Donna Leon and Keith County Sherrill, both got target letters from the federal government. We just talked about that, right? It's the most serious you can get under an indictment. Okay? Now, what's the subject letter? A subject letter is somewhere between the witness subpoena and the target letter. It's not as serious as a target letter and it's more serious than getting a subpoena for a witness, right? To a federal prosecutor, the subject is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury investigation. And what that means is the government considers the subject's behavior suspicious. And there's some risk the subject has engaged in a legal activity. And so, you know, two questions comes up. This is the highest ranking person in the city next to the mayor. Why do you, and as you see on that slide, behind him is a guy named Max Sward. And oh, Max, this is Roya Max, right? You see Max back there with his arms crossed. All right, so they both were at the grand jury last week. Now, Max was on the Honolulu County Police Commission pointed by Mayor Carwell when they gave Louis his $250,000 retirement bonus. And maybe this is just my humble opinion. Maybe what's being investigated is why it is that the city felt necessary to give Louis K. Lohan $250,000 after he got indicted. Right, I mean, again, I've been doing this for decades. I have never, never seen a city do something like this after a public official has been indicted to give him $250,000 as a settlement, right? And then now, according to Donna Leon's attorney, I'm just quoting from one of the new sources here because I want to give you the actual facts, right? And so according to her attorney, in addition to being, this is a quote from her attorney with respect to whether or not Donna Leon engaged in criminal conduct. And obviously the lawyer's saying no. In addition to being entirely legal, the severance payment to former Chief K. Lohan was in the best interest of Honolulu as it quickly ended his tenure without further litigation. To suggest that a legal severance payment that accomplishes go with somehow a crime is absurd. Ms. Leon is an attorney of great integrity, is completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and should not have her reputation tarnished by this misguided prosecution. Now, you know, and again, as we all know, everybody's, you presumed innocent in our government until and unless the government can prove you're guilty of the crime, right? The presumption of innocence. But again, I'm just telling you, from being a criminal defense attorney, when the target letter comes in as a different Donna Leon and Keith Connichero, I mean, we're talking about serious stuff here, right? You're not gonna get that unless there's been evidence of criminal wrongdoing. So let's go back to this. Now, if you see, again, you still got Max Sword, who was on the police commission, who authorized the settlement. The right of she hand is no longer on the police commission. She resigned a few weeks ago and objected to the settlement, but Sword pushed it. In fact, I think Sword was in the meeting with Donna Leon and counsel for Louis K. Loha when this settlement was worked out. Then they went back in to the police commission and voted and approved it, with the exception of Loretta Sheehan. She voted no on it, okay? So now Max went to the grand jury last week also, along with this guy named Roy, the city manager. This was Max's second time at the grand jury. Now, what could that mean? It could mean that they, so let's say the feds bought Max and six months ago, say Max, you're under oath, right? You're a target or a subject of this investigation and they're asking questions. Then they continue to investigate and then they find out, well, either they find out more evidence that they didn't know and didn't ask Max at that time or they found out evidence that contradicts what Max said earlier. And so they may think Max could be fudging a few things, right, under oath. So they call him back. So you get a client, they just call back to the grand jury twice, remember? At that point, if they're telling different stories, they could be charged with perjury. And perjury means that you told two different stories under oath, right? So that could be a perjury trap. And if you go back to the investigation that was on President Trump, by the former FBI, the head of the FBI, Mueller. Yeah, I thought I was getting old. Yeah, that Mueller investigation, remember? They kept, President Trump kept saying this is a perjury trap and Michael Flynn kept saying this is a print. This is what they're talking about, right? Lying to the feds either under oath or when you're interviewing with the FBI agent or federal agent and you don't tell the truth, you can be charged with perjury. But Max went back twice. So that kind of raises some, we don't know, but I will be concerned if I'm a Max's lawyer. So if Max came to me and said, look, I got another call from the prosecutors that want me to testify again. I want to find out as Max's lawyer what I'm gonna call the prosecutor, what does John want from him? Now, okay, see, I said, look Lawson, we understand all that, all right? So now we got the witness, Supina. Subject letter, which is what Rory is. And then you got the target letters. Those are three things that's coming out from the federal investigation that can compel you to come to the grand jury. You don't have to go, right? If you get a target letter, you can tell the prosecutor, my client's gonna take the fifth. He ain't coming down there or whatever. You know, if you're calling me, he's gonna take the fifth. Right? He has a right to take the fifth or she has a right to take the fifth. Same with a subject letter. Same as a, as a subpoena for a witness. If you know, if you get a client that says, look, I got a subpoena being a witness, they may not notice, but I know a lot more information because I was involved in the crime and they can take the fifth too. But those are the three ways you get down to the grand jury. Now let's get down to the meat of what we're talking about. Cause he only give me a half hour here at Think Tech Hawaii. And I got a cram all this in and a half hour. But I'm grateful to be able to do it. So here's what we're gonna do. So when you get all these people in here, these people being Roy, Donna Leon, the highest ranking civil attorney involved in this, Max, right? Don't it, right? And again, we keep in mind what the feds are doing is they're climbing up the ladder. They're climbing up the ladder. And so all I can say is this, you know, if I was sitting there and let's say Kirk Caldwell came in tomorrow for say, you know, they just subpoena, Donna Leon. They gave her a target letter. They gave my boy Roy. My, they gave him a subject letter and now they calling Max and Roy and Donna down down to the grand jury. Attorney Lawson, should I be concerned? This is Kirk Caldwell calling me, right? And I say, Kirk, I don't want to talk over the phone because your phone might be bugged. So Kirk comes into the office. I'm just telling you straight up, this is what I would tell the client. I would, if I was you, I would be talking over your phone. Now there's a federal investigation going on and it's close to you. So come on in, Kirk. So Kirk comes in and I say, hey, look here, man. You know, you got to come clean with me because the way it works down in the federal pond, right, little fish eats big fish. And it seems like they're working their way up because what's curious is who gave them the authority and told them that they should get this done. Whose idea was it that giving Louis $250,000 would be a good idea when he's under federal investigation? Whose brainstorm was that, Kirk? And if we know that some of the funds that was used was federal funds instead of city funds and maybe they came from some type of grant and you took the money from this federal grant to pay off this criminal, then we got some problems, Kirk. So again, you need to let us know, honestly, let me know. It's what I was, people always ask me all the time, hey, when you was practicing law as a defense lawyer, did you want to know if your client did it? Well, I always tell them, yeah, I want my client to tell me the truth. Because see, here's the deal. As long as I know that you telling me the truth, I know when everybody else is lying. And when you're getting into a criminal conspiracy, whether it's white collar, whether it's a miski indictment, you gonna get some lying ass people, I mean, they criminals, right? And even some of the investigators and the police is gonna be lying. It's just gonna happen. And so it's odd that sometimes in our system, often in our system of justice, you got so many people in that line and everybody in the courtroom know everybody lying. Judge know the cop line, judge know the witness line, defendant, everybody lying. And we're on a journey to find the truth. But anyway, let's get back to it. So I would tell my client, look, I need to know. As long as I know what the truth is, right? And remember there's an attorney client privilege, so I can't divulge any of this. But if I know what the truth is, and I can go to work on the people that's lying, but if you lying to me and the witness is lying, it's hard for me to cross the exam, right? And so most clients, and one day I'll have a guest, I got some former clients on the mainland that would love to, and you know, reform, they're reformed, right? Ex-murderers and hit man, they would love to come on my show and tell you why it's important for clients to be honest with their lawyer. But anyway, that's beside the points. Let's speed up here. And so again, if Merrick Caldwell came into my office with all this going on right now, I would tell him, yeah, you need to pay a retainer. You need to hire somebody. If it ain't me, you need to get you a lawyer. Because from what? Because the real question is going to be, who gave the order? Look, think about it in miski indictment terms, right? Now they got charged, you got this conspiracy to commit murder to this young man that was from Hawaii County. Remember that, and we'll get back into miski next week. I'm gonna give you guys an update on the miski indictment next week, right? And so you got the individuals who actually killed the young man. But you want to know who gave that order, right? As a prosecutor and the police, but you want who gave the order? Who told you how to give Lloyd $250,000? Where did that come from? Who has to approve that? Who has to put this in motion? Now, again, like I said, we still have this secret grand jury going on. I'm just giving you my opinion, but this is from my experience, right? From looking, from doing this for years and very complicated white collar and criminal enterprise, right? Recal claims or cases. That they looking to go to whoever can get that order. And that's probably the mayor. I could be wrong, but this is my opinion. So you know what? But one thing I'm going to tell you how it is that I'm very seldom wrong or I wouldn't be on here talking like this. And so like I said, it's still my opinion, but that's what they're looking for. Because somebody had to say, that's a good idea to give Lloyd $250,000. And if they're using federal grant money for it, that means that they had to make it work. And why? Did Lloyd have something on somewhere else? Did Kat have something on somewhere else to say, y'all going to pay me $250,000? Or, right, I'm going to start flapping my gums. Think about it. I mean, look, a $250,000 settlement as Donna Leon's lawyer said, and you could do that. It may be stupid, it ain't criminal. If it's coming from funds that you're allowed to use, but if it's coming from a federal grant and you took money from that grant that has absolutely, because when you got a federal grant, you cannot go outside the terms of that, right? And so if you put it in to get the money for the grant and wasn't up front with it, you could find yourself falsifying documents, right, commit some type of fraud. Now, I don't know. We're just guessing. But I'm telling you, man, I saw Michael Wheaton, when I'm talking about the federal prosecutor and his avengers go after Kat now. And you said, y'all don't remember this, but that jury came back in a heartbeat. I mean, they had fine defendants with all these different charges. That trial lasted for weeks and that jury was out for a couple of hours and it was like guilty. And so two things. Everybody thought, not everybody, but a lot of these politicians and these criminals thought that, you know what? The feds and Didacat and Louis and Han and Bobby Wendell's other two police and they're not gonna get a conviction. When they got that conviction, crossed the board on all charges, only one defendant would sound that guilty. When we and the federal prosecutors got that conviction last year, it woke a lot of these other criminals up. And so they may be down there, like I said, they're not. Look, they calling all these individuals in one by one and it's going higher and higher up that damn food chain. And that's all I'm saying on it. Now let's get back to one last issue before we go. Let's go to the last slide. Hey man, okay, so for you that don't know, that's a picture of Kat K. Aloha, convicted felon Bobby Wendt, convicted felon Derrick Ein and convicted felon Louis K. Aloha. And they still haven't been sentenced yet, right? Now a lot of people are saying, well, I wish, why is it taking so long for them to get sentenced? The courts have opened back up, Lawson. Why can't they get sentenced and go away? Here's why I think it's good that they haven't been sentenced. The COVID pandemic. If you go back and look, Paul Manafort was sentenced to like eight years in federal penitentiary. Then the COVID pandemic, where's Paul at now? He in his, he upstate in New York eating bonbons and with house slippers on and smoking a pipe, watching Fox News. That's where Paul at. Michael Avenatti. Remember Stormy Daniels lawyer, the criminal that got, I mean, you can't make this shit up. Yeah, Michael Avenatti got convicted by a federal man. He's looking at double digit years. Guess where he at now? He in California, staying with a friend. If Kat and Louis and these other two knuckle here, if Han and when, if they get sentenced now, especially with Kat and Louis age, they coming right back home and they ain't gonna do their time in no penitentiary. They gonna do it on home incarceration. And so one thing I'm, hopefully a judge knows, hey, look, we gonna kick this sentencing down the can till we get this pandemic straight. And then we'll send it down. Cause if anybody deserves to do their time in the penitentiary and not at home eating bonbons, is Kat and Louis after what they did to grandma, Pawana and her uncle, Gerard Pawana. And so again, I know people saying we want them sentenced or they need to go and get sentenced now what's taken so long. I wanna give you the upside to it is you, we want this pandemic to go away. Because I think we'd be, I'd be more upset if she got sentenced and then they sent her right back here to Hawaii to say, you can serve your sentence on home incarceration. Now that, that, that is just wrong. So I'm out of time. Again, next week we're gonna pick back up with, I'm gonna bring you some updates on the Miski enterprise case, but until then, this is a law at Lawson signing off. I'll see you next Tuesday at 1 PM here on Hawaii think type. I'm out.