Kealoha joint task force needed

Dear Editor,  July 4, 2019

The glaring omission in the comments on the Kealoha corruption convictions was that neither Governor Ige nor Mayor Caldwell announced the intent to form an INDEPENDENT PROACTIVE JOINT FEDERAL state and county task force to root out corruption.  Obviously, as shown by the Kealoha’s years (maybe decades) of unchecked criminal conspiracies, the current state and county governments will not and/or cannot police themselves.  Was this case only the tiniest tip of the corruption iceberg?

We were “lucky” this time.  The whole state owes a huge debt of gratitude to Public Defender’s Alexander Silvert’s tenacious courage, who way back in 2013, was faced with being crushed by the combined power of the Honolulu Police Department, the Prosecutors office and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.  Instead of doing the easy conventional wisdom standard plead guilty deal in what initially looked like a slam dunk for the prosecution, he decided, at great personal risk, to defend a helpless desperate innocent (Gerard Puana) against some of the greatest powers in the state.  And by doing so, saved countless future innocents by uncovering the greatest criminal conspiracies in Hawaii history.

Leighton Loo

Mililani, Oahu