Feds say Hawaii crime lord committed suicide to stop Uncle Sam from seizing $20 million fortune

by Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times, March 15, 2026

Hawaii nightclub owner Michael Miske Jr. was found guilty of murder and a host of other charges, and a jury said he should forfeit more than $20 million to Uncle Sam as part of his punishment.

Miske died of a fentanyl overdose before he could be sentenced, which usually would wipe out the case, except the government now says it has evidence that Miske overdosed intentionally. The feds said he cannot be allowed to use his own death to thwart the government from getting the money it says it is due.

Matthew Cavedon, head of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, said he has been tracking forfeiture cases for years and has never seen anything else like Miske’s case.

“The dead may rest in peace, but property often does not,” he said.

Prosecutors said Miske was responsible for a reign of terror in Hawaii that included paying to have a pesticide dumped on dancers at rival nightclubs and orchestrating the kidnapping and killing of a man he held responsible for a son’s death.

After a 99-day trial, a jury convicted him of more than a dozen charges in July 2024. The jury then ordered the forfeiture of property.

Miske was slated to be sentenced on Jan. 30, 2025, but he died of an overdose two months earlier.

U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson, who is pursuing the $20 million, said Miske and others cannot be allowed “to dictate the fate of their ill-gotten gains.”

“Our criminal prosecution of Michael Miske demonstrated that he was a thug who used robbery, felony assaults, drug trafficking, fraud, chemical weapons attacks on his competitors, murder, and criminal obstruction to terrorize and intimidate Hawaii for many years,” he said.

Government attorneys said Miske arranged with a former inmate to smuggle fentanyl into the prison in exchange for a car. The man intentionally violated the conditions of his release and was remanded to the Federal Detention Center, Honolulu.

Prosecutors said in court documents that investigators last year found “an individual” who detailed the plot. They said Miske took smaller amounts of fentanyl in the days leading up to his death to make him appear to be a regular drug user, which he felt would make his overdose more plausible as an accident.

Mr. Cavedon said the prolonged fentanyl use could cut the other way by suggesting Miske had become a user who unintentionally went too far.

In the criminal world, dying before conviction wipes out charges, and death before sentencing wipes out punishment. In Miske’s case, it erased the jury’s decision to forfeit the $20 million in cash and property.

The government last year responded with a civil forfeiture case, in which the property itself is the defendant and the government has no presumption of innocence to overcome.

“Forfeiture-land is a place where the normal rules don’t work,” Mr. Cavedon said. “There’s something remarkable about the fact that this case is going forward and [Miske is] not here to defend himself.”

The government argues that the incentive to protect his money was so great that Miske was willing to take his own life.

Mr. Cavedon said the government’s incentives are also suspect: “You have a government that’s so desperate to get its hands on this money that it’s willing to take this action after he died.”

Miske could rebut the intentionality accusations if he were alive, but his death makes the case more complicated.

Edward Michael Burch, a lawyer representing the trust, said the Justice Department’s intentional suicide theory is “novel and fundamentally flawed” as a legal matter.

He said Miske’s business empire generated a good deal of legal profits and the government is trying to “rob an innocent 9-year-old, who has lost her father, grandfather, and effectively her mother, of her means to live without financial hardship.”

“We look forward to preventing the government from holding a child responsible for the alleged sins of others,” the lawyer said in a statement.

Among the property the feds want are several boats, artwork, a 2017 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, four vintage Volkswagens, a 1970 Ford Bronco and bank accounts.

After his conviction but before his death, Miske transferred all his property into an existing trust and removed others to make the sole beneficiary his granddaughter, the daughter of Miske’s son Caleb, who was killed in a 2016 car crash. That was the crash for which prosecutors said Miske was exacting revenge in the murder-for-hire.