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UH Blows $4.7M on Buyouts, Lawyers

HNN: On Monday, the state Senate Committee on Accountability released more than 1,700 pages of UH documents that also show that the university has paid more than $2.5 million in buyouts to six former UH officials during the past 12 years….

The documents released Monday also included emails and testimony by UH's Chief Financial Officer Howard Todo, who raised concerns with Manoa campus officials about the concert nearly two weeks before it was canceled.

Todo later met with UH President MRC Greenwood and both concluded that all they could do at that point is "hope the concert would be successfully conducted."

The documents also show that the UH spent lavishly for outside legal work -- before and after -- the Stevie Wonder concert fiasco. These lawyers billed the UH nearly $2.2 million between April 2011 and March 2012.

SA: Donovan tells panel he was not involved with wiring $200,000

CB: The University of Hawaii's Costly Fumble

SA: Greenwood defends UH before Senate panel on concert

read … Senate committee releases UH concert documents

UH Paid Lawyer $50K to Cover for Greenwood, Another got $25K to Cover for Everybody Else

HNN: University of Hawaii President M.R.C Greenwood told a special State Senate committee Monday that she knows more about the law enforcement investigation and the possible whereabouts of the $200,000 UH lost in the failed Stevie Wonder concert than she can disclose publicly.  (She admits to a lie of omission, but has an excuse.)

Click HERE to watch the live steam

One of the two attorneys who conducted an investigation for UH into the bungled concert said he did not interview Greenwood as part of that probe. (He then admits to pre-judging the investigation to justify covering up for Greenwood.)

That's because Greenwood involvement in the planning and management leading up to the concert was "non existent," limited to just one email, said Dennis Chong Kee, a partner in the law firm Cades Schutte (and he was paid good money to make sure it stayed that way.)….

Senators also questioned attorney Robert Katz, whose law firm got a $25,000 contract to redact UH documents, sanitizing them of information his firm felt needed to be protected from public view for legal reasons. (Question: Why is one person worth $50K and others are worth only a fraction of $25K?)

Katz said his firm removed the names of non-UH employees to avoid potential legal action by them and to avoid interfering in the law enforcement investigation.

But senators said the lawyers removed names from some contracts with the university that should be public under state law.  Katz said his office never checked with the state's Office of Information Practices, the entity that makes rulings on information and documents that should be disclosed to the public and the media.

read … $50K to cover for MRC and $25K to cover for everybody else