Image above: Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho in court. From (http://m.thegardenisland.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/prosecutor-defends-program/article_bd19f18a-465b-11e1-b4d7-001871e3ce6c.html).
Over the years many of the political old-timers have bemoaned the lack of "colorful" characters in Kaua`i officialdom these days.
"Where's the next Tony Baptiste or "Smokey" Louie Gonzalves? What about another Billy Fernandez?" they ask.
In all rhetorical honesty we've gotta suggest that there will never be another Tony, Louie or Billy.
In the day, self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement went hand-in-hand, and people expected it from those they elected. Corruption and abuse of power aside, what they say is missing these days is the pure bombast--the chest-thumping, booming oratory along with the routine mangling of language that went way beyond simply the use of pidgin in its curious misuse, mispronunciation and, well, general misappropriation of what used to be called "10 dollah words."
And though many have demonstrated elements of the old-time grandiloquent clap-trap and kleptomaniacal cronyism, none have embraced the whole package. Until recently.
Former Council member and current Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho has at least approached the old standard, and her escapades have been well chronicled in this space. Undisputed queen of the Malaprop, she also has the inability to speak more than a couple of hundred words without throwing in a "looooodicrous" or two, which accompanies a personal-vendetta style of governance right out of a "B" gangster movie.
But this week's chapter of her blood feud with Council member Tim Bynum may have reached the hallowed heights of yesteryear when her "Rice-Cooker-Gate" case against Bynum was ripped from her office-abusing hands as Fifth Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe got fed up with Shaylene and her First Deputy Jake Deleplane and threw the case to the state attorney general for disposition.
Readers might have gotten a small sense of Iseri's misbehavior if they read the oft-confusing and momentously-lacking-in-detail account in the local newspaper.
Apparently reporter Tom LaVenture was in a parallel courtroom to the one where journalist-reporter Joan Conrow observed the action, as Conrow actually quoted Watanabe, Deleplane and Bynum's attorney Dan Hempey in quickly and clearly getting to the point:
Lucas Burns testified he was working as a deputy prosecutor when Jake asked him to contact Liberty Yokotake, who had been assaulted by another woman while living at Tim's house. He said Jake coached him to use the assault case as a guise for asking questions about the layout of Tim's house and the location of various appliances, which could be evidence of a zoning violation. And all the while, Lucas would be surreptitiously tape recording the conversation.
The plot was foiled when Lucas refused to play along. "I thought it was inappropriate to secretly tape record and try to come up with reasons why these questions were being asked when it was really to investigate Mr. Bynum," he told the court. "I thought doing this with a hidden tape recorder and without the full knowledge of the victim was inappropriate and not something the first deputy should be doing."
What followed was a description of Deleplane's bafflingly incriminating courtroom antics and defense of Iseri and her office followed by Watanabe's excoriation of the two.
We won't try to summarize it all because it has to be read to grasp the full sleaziness of Iseri and Deleplane's apparently lawless activity, the gist of which has also seemingly been forwarded to the attorney general's office.
Those who have followed the case already know how Iseri apparently lied in trying to say that the whole case was initiated by the planning department. In fact, documents show that she was the one behind the apparently illegal searches and trumped-up charges against Bynum as revenge for Bynum's challenges to the paternalistic authority of her ally, former Council Chair Kaipo Asing (who not so oddly was in court for the hearing) during the time when she, Bynum and Asing were on the council together.
Those who have followed the story as told here (look for background by clicking the links above), in Conrow's KauaiEclectic blog, and, to a lesser and more confusing degree, in the local newspaper, have been appalled to this point by the inelegant abuse of power Iseri has exhibited during her reign as Prosecuting Attorney.
Some will be satisfied in knowing that current Deputy County Attorney Justin Kollar is running against her this November.
But if she is allowed to simply do as Smokey Louis and Uncle Billy (Tony Baptiste actually went to jail while he was mayor where he ran the county from his cell) and freely walk away, we'll only be inviting future Iseri's into office.
We urge the state attorney general not just to drop the non-case against Bynum, but to start an investigation of Iseri, if necessary kicking it up to the FBI, which has reportedly been looking into corruption and abuse of office on Kaua`i going back to the Bryan Baptiste administration.
We enjoy the entertainment factor as much the the next guy. But as much as we've enjoyed the laughs, when it comes to Iseri, our sense of humor is wearing thin.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Live pono. Be pono. — Campaign slogan of County Prosecutor Shaylene-Iseri CarvalhoOne of Shay's former deputies was in court this morning, recounting her office's scheme to mislead and secretly tape record a crime victim in hopes of digging up dirt on Councilman Tim Bynum. His testimony was presented in support of a motion to recuse Shay from prosecuting Tim on two misdemeanor counts for an alleged zoning violation. But after all was said and done, Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe went one step further than that. “Your entire office is disqualified from prosecuting this case,” she told deputy prosecutor Jake Delaplane. “It will be forwarded on to the Attorney General's office.” The judge later noted:
“The court has very serious concerns about how this matter was handled.”Lucas Burns testified he was working as a deputy prosecutor when Jake asked him to contact Liberty Yokotake, who had been assaulted by another woman while living at Tim's house. He said Jake coached him to use the assault case as a guise for asking questions about the layout of Tim's house and the location of various appliances, which could be evidence of a zoning violation. And all the while, Lucas would be surreptitiously tape recording the conversation. The plot was foiled when Lucas refused to play along. He told the court.
"I thought it was inappropriate to secretly tape record and try to come up with reasons why these questions were being asked when it was really to investigate Mr. Bynum. I thought doing this with a hidden tape recorder and without the full knowledge of the victim was inappropriate and not something the first deputy should be doing.After cross-examining Lucas, Jake told the judge that he likely would need to take the witness stand himself to rebut Lucas' testimony. He asked for a delay so he could brief another prosecutor to handle the case until the recusal motion was decided. Watanabe questioned why the prosecutor's office hadn't foreseen this possibility when Lucas was first presented as a witness. Jake replied that it had, which is why it had sought a motion to keep Lucas from testifying. Tim's attorney, Dan Hempey, objected to any delay, saying Jake knew well in advance what Lucas would be testifying about. Rules were in place, he said, to prevent “parties from playing fast and loose with the court.” He argued that if Jake was going to be a witness, it proved the prosecutor's office had a conflict, so the judge should immediately grant his motion for recusal. Hempey also noted that Lucas had been flown in from the Big Island at Tim's expense, and two county workers — senior planning inspector Sheilah Miyake and former planning director Ian Costa — were waiting outside to testify. It was the second time they'd been called as witnesses in the case, and they had indicated they did not want to come back. “You don't get to change horses in mid-stream,” Hempey said. “This was so foreseeable and avoidable. Let's just stop this right now and start over with a fair process.” Jake contended his office had no conflict, and said “how we proceeded in this case is entirely proper.” But the judge wasn't buying it. “I cannot fathom why you would not have anticipated a conflict,” she said. “We did,” Jake said, which is why his office had sought the motion to quash Lucas' subpoena so he couldn't testify. “Now you're changing your position,” the judge said, noting that originally, they asked her to bar Lucas ' testimony because it was work product. “Now you're saying it's because I knew what he was going to say and I didn't want you to hear it.” And then there was the issue of the letter that Shay wrote to the County Council in January of this year. In it, she referenced “Bynum's paranoid belief” that the actions taken by her office “were calculated personal attacks against him.” Shay also claimed in the letter that Tim shouldn't be allowed to participate in discussions about funding a law clerk for her office “because he has a vested interest in ensuring that the OPA not operate at peak efficiency.” Shay went on to maintain that the case against Tim had been investigated by the planning department and referred to her office for prosecution. In calling for Shay's recusal, Hempey argued that her comments were prejudicial, jeopardizing his client's ability to receive a fair trial. Although the letter was stamped confidential, Hempey said, Shay had released it to the media and discussed it during the televised Council meeting, thus casting public aspersions on Tim's character. He also noted that her claim about the planning department's investigation was clearly untrue, and said he might need to call her to testify about “selective enforcement” at Tim's upcoming trial. Jake tried to explain away the letter, but the judge was disturbed that it had been released. “I think that's what I find truly amazing is your ability and your office's ability to compartmentalize,” she said. “What you consider to be private and confidential can be released, what you consider to be a conflict and not a conflict.” After the judge recused the prosecutor's office, Jake objected to her decision, saying she had made it before the hearing was pau. “Your position, your arguments, your comments on the record have convinced this court your office should not be prosecuting this case,” she responded. “We stopped in mid-hearing at your request because you felt you and your office were in conflict. Mr. Delaplane, you and your office truly need to to step back and really take a careful look at the positions, statements, you take that are so rife with apparent conflict. The court has very serious concerns about how this matter was handled.” After the hearing, which had been attended by half-a-dozen attorneys from the prosecutor's office, Deputy County Attorney Maunakea Trask and former Councilman Kaipo Asing, among others, I asked Tim how he felt. “I share her concerns about how this matter has been handled,” he said, his voice trembling. “This is very emotional for me. I take my integrity seriously, and to hear it disparaged publicly. This whole thing is unbelievable. It's just Alice in Wonderland.”
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