Thousands of dollars in campaign donations to former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro are the focus of a high-profile trial that began in U.S. District Court on Wednesday. 

In an opening statement, the government said a local engineering firm, Mitsunaga & Associates Inc., directed more than $45,000 to Kaneshiro to get its ex-employee, Laurel Mau, “prosecuted and put in jail for a crime she did not commit.”

The goal was to “intimidate, oppress and imprison” Mau after their employment relationship had soured, according to federal prosecutor Michael Wheat. 

“They used their resources and their money to purchase a prosecution from defendant No. 1, Keith Kaneshiro,” Wheat told the jury.  

Kaneshiro, the firm’s founder Dennis Mitsunaga, firm employees Terri Ann Otani, Aaron Fujii and Chad McDonald, and the firm’s former attorney Sheri Tanaka are all facing federal conspiracy charges. 

In opening statements, defense attorneys presented a counter-narrative. They said the firm fired Mau due to misconduct, and that the defendants sought prosecution because Mau had done unauthorized side jobs using company time and resources.

Campaign money given to Kaneshiro around the time they requested the prosecution is not proof of a bribe and is protected by the First Amendment, the defense argued.

“Contributions that are made to gain access are perfectly legal,” Kaneshiro’s attorney Birney Bervar said. “They must prove there was an agreement in order to prove bribery … There is no evidence of any agreement.”

Wheat shared a yearslong timeline tracking how Mau went from working successfully as an architect for MAI to being prosecuted for theft. 

In 2011, Mau approached Dennis Mitsunaga for a raise. He didn’t provide an answer right away. Instead, months later, he sent her a letter granting the raise but also outlining a list of complaints about her. After Mau sent her boss a response to that letter – refuting it point by point, Wheat said – she was fired without explanation.

That letter helps explain the firm’s malice against Mau, according to Wheat.

“Laurel Mau had the courage to stand up for herself,” Wheat said.

But Mitsunaga’s lawyer, Nina Marino, told the story differently. She said in the time between Mau’s request for a raise and her firing, the firm became aware of “weird anomalies” in billing records and that Mau was using the company’s name to obtain building permits for her side projects. The firm concluded she was “double dipping,” Marino said, and Mitsunaga was “hurt and angry.”

“In the end, he concluded she had not been honest with him,” Marino said. “He felt victimized, his trust violated and betrayed by Laurel Mau, someone he had referred to as a friend to his family.”

Marino claimed, though, that Mitsunaga never saw Mau’s written rebuttal and that it was Fujii who fired her.

The firm had an employee videotape Mau as she packed up her desk, the footage of which was shown in court on Wednesday. Wheat suggested to the jury that the firm took some pleasure in doing so.

“You’ll see the glee in Ms. Tanaka’s face,” Wheat said before the footage was shown. “They chased her car through the garage, filming her as she left the building that day.”

When Mau sought unemployment benefits, MAI took steps to block her access, arguing that she was ineligible because she was fired for cause – the work she was doing on the side. The firm had an interest in denying her the benefit because its approval threatened to increase the firm’s insurance rate, according to Thomas Otake, McDonald’s attorney.

Once Mau was granted unemployment benefits, MAI appealed the decision to both a hearing officer and the state court system, but Mau prevailed.

According to Wheat, Mau did help others in her spare time and often did so for free. Unfortunately, one of those jobs “went awry,” Wheat said, and the client, noticing Mau’s MAI email address, sued the firm, even though it was not a MAI project.

This case concerned the defendants, according to the defense attorneys, because they didn’t know if Mau’s other work on the side could open them up to additional liability.

Soon after, Mau expressed her intent to sue MAI for gender and age discrimination. Within a month of that notice, Fujii submitted a report to the Honolulu Police Department accusing Mau of theft from the firm. But no charges were filed.

“Nothing came of it,” Wheat said.

Otani’s attorney Doris Lum suggested that perhaps the case was “too complex” for HPD.

In September 2012, Otani — Mitsunaga’s cousin and “right-hand person at the firm” — had her friend, then city councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, arrange a meeting between Mitsunaga, Tanaka and Kaneshiro, Wheat said. The purpose of the meeting was to present the case against Mau, according to Wheat.

Mitsunaga’s attorney didn’t dispute that.

“Asking for a meeting with the head prosecutor was not odd for Mr. Mitsunaga. His lifetime political connections had given him access to many politicians,” Marino said. “There was no discussion of a bribe.”

Within three weeks of that meeting, Kaneshiro’s campaign received $13,250 from Mitsunaga, his wife, Fujii and Tanaka. More donations would follow as the case went on, eventually totaling close to $50,000.

“They were bundled together so Mr. Kaneshiro knew the money was coming from MAI,” Wheat said.

Marino said that her client was simply impressed by Kaneshiro and recognized that the politician might need some extra campaign cash, given that an election was a few weeks away. Mitsunaga made donations and encouraged others to do the same, she said.

Later on, after another meeting with Kaneshiro, Mitsunaga would come away from the interaction “liking Mr. Kaneshiro even more” and again steered money his way, Marino said.

In January 2014, the deputy Kaneshiro had assigned to the case, Dwight Nadamoto, said he saw no basis for criminal charges against Mau, Wheat said. In a memo to Kaneshiro, he noted that other MAI employees did side jobs, according to Wheat.

Months later, the civil trial on Mau’s discrimination case had concluded. A jury decided against Mau and awarded Mitsunaga’s firm $1 for breach of loyalty. Tanaka sent Kaneshiro transcripts from that case in which Mau confessed to doing side jobs on company time, defense attorneys said.

“It was this testimony that wasn’t there before when Nadamoto was looking at it that made Tanaka bring it up and say ‘I think this is worth a second look,'” Otake said.

Meanwhile, Kaneshiro had hired a new deputy prosecutor, Jacob Delaplane, and reassigned the Mau case to him. In early 2014, he tried to charge the case based on a declaration from MAI, but a judge rejected it because the case lacked backing from a law enforcement official, Wheat said.

Delaplane later found an investigator willing to sign a declaration and filed charges against Mau for theft, according to Wheat. In Wheat’s telling, the case had no merit. It was never established that Mau did not work a 40-hour workweek, he said.

“There was no basis for that charge,” Wheat said.

After Mau was arrested, Tanaka, Otani and McDonald went to her arraignment, Wheat said, and someone took pictures of Mau outside the courthouse.

“They all go down that day to watch Laurel Mau’s humiliation in court,” Wheat said.

In 2017, after a judge dismissed the case against Mau, Kaneshiro sought to appeal that decision. But two members of his staff, assigned to handle appeals, declined to do so.

Wheat said this case involves only one “criminal side job” in which a longtime employee used their professional resources for personal gain, and that was Kaneshiro.

Throughout their opening statements, defense attorneys emphasized their clients’ local bonafides, leading with where the defendants grew up and what island schools they attended.

And they framed the pursuit of Mau’s prosecution as a reasonable response by an employer who was wronged by a former employee. Besides, they said, they only presented the evidence they had to Kaneshiro’s office. From there, it was up to prosecutors to proceed with the case, or not, based on their expertise, they said.

“The prosecution of Laurel Mau was for the criminal authorities to put together,” Tanaka’s lawyer Mark Mermelstein said.

For Kaneshiro’s part, his attorney said he never ordered his staff to pursue the case. There was “no pressure whatsoever,” Bervar said.

“Jake (Delaplane) will say he charged that case because he believed there was probable cause,” Bervar said.

Mitsunaga’s history of generous political giving, and his encouragement of his family, friends and other contacts to give as well, will be central to the case. On that, Marino acknowledged that her client and those associated with him donated more than $2 million between 2010 and 2020 to political causes. But she noted less than 3% of that went to Kaneshiro.

“Mr. Mitsunaga’s success allows him to give back,” she said.

Attorneys for Mitsunaga’s subordinates stressed to the jury that their clients were not present at the meetings between their boss and Kaneshiro and were not aware of any quid pro quo arrangement.

Getting revenge on Mau was not “a priority in his life,” Otake said of McDonald. And Fujii simply donated to candidates with whom he shared common values, his attorney Andrew Kennedy said.

“None of these donations were made for a pay-to-play scheme,” he said.

The trial is scheduled to continue Monday through Thursday until mid-May.