HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A new petition is calling for lawmakers to investigate one of their own after federal court documents revealed an “influential state legislator” took a $35,000 bribe but was never charged.
The Change.org petition asks the legislature to “immediately convene an investigative committee with subpoena and contempt powers” and hold public hearings to determine whether any state laws or ethical rules were violated.
It has been nearly three years since former senator J. Kalani English and former representative Ty Cullen were convicted of taking bribes from wastewater company owner Milton Choy.
They served their time in federal prison and were released in 2024.
Choy died in prison.
But details of the mystery, third elected official came to light after Honolulu Civil Beat and attorneys with the Public First Law Center sued to get redacted information unsealed from court documents.
The new details, revealed earlier this year, included information about an operation in January 2022. Then representative Ty Cullen, who made a deal with the FBI, met with another suspect and the “influential state legislator,” the court document said.
Cullen recorded the conversation where that elected official took a $35,000 bribe to use for the campaign. No charges against that person have been filed.
“If we have credible evidence that we have a member of the legislature serving that accepted a $35,000 bribe or a former legislator, until that can be cleared up, there’s a cloud over that body,” said Dan Foley, a retired judge and former chair of the State’s Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct, more often referred to as the Foley Commission.
The Commission was created by the House in 2022 “to create more transparency, greater accountability in state government to help restore public trust.” At that time, they were only aware of Cullen and English’s prosecution.
The commission recommended 31 measures, most became law.
“The legislature turned out to be very serious in improving our laws governing ethics, campaign spending, and lobbying,” but Foley said not much has been done since to improve transparency.
Foley hopes lawmakers will take the petition seriously and once again, take action instead of ignoring it.
“There’s nothing for the legislature to lose and everything to gain,” Foley said.
He added at the very least, they should refer the matter to a committee for public hearings “on whether or not the special committee should be created or a committee of general jurisdiction should proceed.”
Tom Simon, a retired FBI agent said the statute of limitations for accepting a bribe as a state official is typically five years, so this three-year delay is well within the window.
But retired federal public defender Alexander Silvert, who broke open other public corruption scandals, said the stakes are too high to wait for the feds, especially if the unnamed legislator is still in office.
Silvert started the petition and does not believe the mystery official will be prosecuted because there has been no movement in years.
“If nothing gets done, this incident will be lost. We’ll never know what really happened,” Silvert said.
“For the sake of transparency and good government and the public’s right to know, we need some entity to investigate. And that entity has to be the legislature.”
Hawaii News Now political analyst Colin Moore said legislative action would help build public trust.
“This is what would give people, I think, more faith that elected officials are also policing their own, that when they hear something like this, they’re going to follow up to the extent that they’re able to do so,” Moore said.
The petition does not need a minimum number of signatures to be filed at the capitol. Experts say it could be an uncomfortable challenge for the elected officials.
“You can’t go on, business as usual, when you know that the integrity of your institution is to at least that degree corrupt,” said Camron Hurt, director of Common Cause Hawaii, “$35,000 is a huge stain on the integrity of our institution.”
Silvert plans to file the petition with the legislature before the new year.
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