Feds say Hawaii crime boss orchestrated his own death to shield millions in assets

A federal judge signaled he would allow some civil discovery to proceed in the government's bid to seize the late crime boss Michael Miske's $20 million fortune.

By Jeremy Yurow, Courthouse News, April 24, 2026

HONOLULU (CN) — Nearly 18 months after Michael Miske died in a federal detention cell, the legal battle over the fortune of the accused crime boss is still very much alive and growing more complicated by the week.

On Friday, attorneys for the federal government and the trust holding Miske’s estate squared off before U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson over whether prosecutors should be allowed to pursue a novel legal theory: that Miske arranged his own death by fentanyl overdose specifically to cheat the government out of more than $20 million in assets a jury had already voted to seize.

Watson, a Barack Obama appointee, pushed back on the government’s bid to freeze all civil proceedings while a related criminal investigation plays out, suggesting the case could move forward on most issues even as he weighs an obstruction question at its core.

“It seems like overkill,” Watson said. “I’m using a bulldozer to kill an ant if I were to stay the entirety of the case.”

Miske was convicted by a federal jury in July 2024 on 13 counts including racketeering, murder for hire and kidnapping. He died at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu in December 2024 before sentencing, which vacated his conviction.

Prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint in January 2025 and have since claimed that the Miske conspired with fellow inmates to smuggle fentanyl into the facility, taking small doses in the days before his death to make the overdose appear accidental.

Department of Justice attorney Stephanie Williamson argued that allowing civil discovery to proceed would inevitably expose the contours of an ongoing criminal investigation, and that the trust’s standing to assert any claims at all remained an open question tied to the obstruction claims. She said prosecutors could present additional evidence to Watson ex parte if needed.

Watson appeared skeptical.

“There are about 250 issues, really probably more like 2,500 issues, that the claimants can pursue without touching on, without drawing any fire from the government that this might interfere with the ability to fully investigate what went on in 2024,” he said.

Edward Burch, an attorney representing Miske’s trust, urged the court to ensure any stay would not block efforts to sell Miske’s properties through an interlocutory sale process, warning that lenders were going unpaid and the trust was bearing mounting maintenance costs.

He said that the two most valuable real properties — an 8,206-square-foot, five-bedroom oceanfront estate in the Portlock neighborhood on Lumahai Street and a Kailua home on Paokano Loop — had been titled to the Miske Trust since 2010 and 2011, well before the 2024 trust amendments at the center of the government’s obstruction theory.

“Those two real properties were always in the trust, regardless of the 2024 amendment,” Burch said. “So even if we assume the best for the government, that the trust somehow doesn’t have standing with regard to the other properties, we still have standing with regard to these two.”

Alongside the government’s motion to stay the case, Friday’s hearing also addressed the government’s bid to file a second amended complaint to add the obstruction of justice theory and the trust’s objections to a magistrate judge’s order allowing that amendment.

Much of the argument centered on a narrow question of statutory interpretation: whether a federal forfeiture statute’s use of the word “obtain" can reach properties acquired years before a purported crime.

Burch argued it cannot.

“Obtain means what it means, and it doesn’t mean retain,” Burch said. “Congress, when they enacted this language 26 years ago, created a very comprehensive statute, and there are other places in the statute that authorize forfeiture of what was broadly intended to be used in a crime or maintained or facilitated. But here, this section specifically limits it to only what was actually obtained — it doesn’t say retained, doesn’t say maintained, it doesn’t say involved in. It says only actually obtained from a crime.”

Watson pressed both sides on the question, zeroing in on a Florida court’s decision the government cited in support of reading “obtain” more broadly. He said the out-of-circuit ruling was not binding on him and asked prosecutors to explain how the reading had expanded to encompass “retain.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph McGinley argued the government’s theory rested on direct or indirect language in the statute that Burch had glossed over in his briefing, and pointed to a but-for analysis supported by several cases, including a 2025 Ninth Circuit decision, holding that civil forfeiture reaches property connected to criminality even where the owner is not convicted.

“Precisely because of the conspiracy to obstruct justice that culminated in Mr. Miske’s suicide, the government never obtained legal title to the properties,” McGinley said.

Watson settled one question from the bench, saying he did not need argument on whether obstruction of justice could occur through suicide.

“My view is that it could, and there’s nothing in the Seventh Circuit case, the only case allegedly cited by the claimant for the contrary conclusion, that is inconsistent with the theory that the government wishes to offer in its second amended complaint,” Watson said. “You’re not going to convince me otherwise.”

Watson did not indicate when he would rule on the other issues.