Greeting the not guilty verdicts with joy, former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro, foreground, and prominent Hawaii businessman Dennis Mitsunaga celebrated their courtroom triumph after being acquitted of corruption counts Thursday at the U.S. District Court in Honolulu. (Keya Rivera/Courthouse News)

Corruption trial witness can pursue conspiracy claims against Honolulu officials

The ruling is a surprising shift in former Mitsunaga & Associates employee Laurel Mau’s favor, after a long-running legal battle that dates back more than a decade.

by Lily Roby, Court House News, October 8, 2025

HONOLULU (CN) —  A federal judge on Monday allowed a conspiracy claim to proceed against Honolulu officials and a private engineering firm in a civil rights case brought by a former employee who says she was maliciously prosecuted in retaliation for filing workplace discrimination complaints.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel issued a mixed ruling on motions to dismiss filed by the city and county of Honolulu, former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro, engineering firm Mitsunaga & Associates (now known as RMA Architects) and other defendants. The ruling is a surprising shift in former Mitsunaga & Associates employee Laurel Mau’s favor, after a long-running legal battle that dates back more than a decade.

Although her malicious prosecution claim was dismissed as time-barred under Hawaii’s two-year statute of limitations, Mau’s §1983 conspiracy claim will survive. The former architect and interior designer sufficiently proved that the conspiracy was “fraudulently concealed” by defendants, who hid information over the course of the trial, such as testimony and written communications sought in discovery.

Curiel, appointed in 2011 by Barack Obama, agreed that Mau could not have discovered the alleged conspiracy until a 2022 federal indictment publicly revealed connections between the Kaneshiro’s office and the private firm, allowing the claim to overcome statute of limitations barriers. That indictment accused firm executives and Kaneshiro of participating in a bribery scheme in which over $45,000 in campaign contributions were allegedly exchanged for the former prosecutor to fight discrimination complaints on the firm’s behalf.

However, Curiel still partially dismissed Mau’s fraudulent concealment claim and granted leave to amend, giving her an opportunity to more fully address certain deficiencies of the fraud-based claim, which typically requires heightened pleading standards.

In 2014, Mau claimed she was prosecuted in retaliation for filing workplace sexual harassment and age discrimination complaints. Mau was charged with theft after she was accused of performing outside work on company time, but the case was dismissed in 2017 for lack of probable cause.