Ex-prosecutor gets 13 years in Hawaii corruption case
HONOLULU — A U.S. judge sentenced a former high-ranking Honolulu prosecutor to 13 years in prison Monday, saying she stole money from her own grandmother and used her husband’s position as a police chief to frame her uncle for a crime he didn’t commit — all to maintain her lavish lifestyle.
Katherine and Louis Kealoha, now estranged, were once a respected power couple. Louis Kealoha agreed to retire amid the wide-ranging federal investigation.
“This case has staggered the community in many ways,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright said, describing how Katherine Kealoha orchestrated a reverse mortgage scheme that forced her grandmother to sell her home, framed her uncle for stealing the Kealohas’ home mailbox, stole money from children whose trusts she controlled as a lawyer, cheated her uncle out of his life savings, persuaded her firefighter lover to lie about their affair and used her position as a prosecutor to turn a drug investigation away from her physician brother.
“Truth can be stranger than fiction,” the judge said.
Her lawyer asked for a sentence of eight years, while prosecutors sought 14 years.
A jury convicted the Kealohas last year of conspiracy.
To avoid a second trial, the Kealohas later pleaded guilty to bank fraud, saying they provided false information to obtain loans.
Katherine Kealoha, 51, also pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge, saying she got a police officer to forge a police report she used to explain negative information on a credit report.
She also pleaded guilty to a charge that involved protecting her brother from the drug investigation.
In a letter to the judge, she blamed a prescription drug addiction for clouding her judgment.
“My client was on drugs, her mind was not clear and she did a lot of bad things,” her lawyer, Gary Singh, said in court.
Kealoha apologized to her family in court and asked for forgiveness. “To my uncle, especially,” she said. “I know that he has been through so much pain and so much hurt.”
Warship’s fate decided: The Navy said Monday that it will decommission a warship docked off San Diego after suspected arson this summer caused extensive damage, making it too expensive to restore.
Fully repairing the USS Bonhomme Richard to war-fighting capabilities would cost $2.5 billion to $3 billion and take five to seven years, said Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage of the Navy Regional Maintenance Center.
The amphibious assault ship burned for more than four days in July and was the Navy’s worst U.S. warship fire outside of combat in recent memory. The ship was left with extensive structural, electrical and mechanical damage.
Arson is suspected as the cause of the July 12 fire, and a U.S. Navy sailor was questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defense official said in late August.
The sailor was questioned as part of the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an official with knowledge of the investigation said in August. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. The sailor was not detained.
NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that the military alliance is grappling with a dilemma over its future in Afghanistan, as the United States starts pulling troops out while attacks by the Taliban and extremist groups mount.
More than 17 years after taking the lead on international security efforts in Afghanistan, NATO now has around 11,000 troops from dozens of nations there helping to train and advise the national security forces. Most of the personnel are from Europe and other NATO partner countries.
But the alliance relies heavily on the U.S. armed forces for air support, transport and logistics. European allies would struggle even to leave the country without U.S. help, and President
NATO’s Afghan future:
Donald Trump’s decision to pull almost half the U.S. troops out by mid-January leaves NATO in a bind.
“We face a difficult dilemma. Whether to leave, and risk that Afghanistan becomes once again a safe haven for international terrorists. Or stay, and risk a longer mission, with renewed violence,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a videoconference between NATO foreign ministers.
‘Stop the madness’: The fugitive leader of Ethiopia’s defiant Tigray region on Monday called on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to “stop the madness” and withdraw troops from the region as he asserted that fighting continues “on every front” two days after Abiy declared victory.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Debretsion Gebremichael said he remains near the Tigray capital, Mekele, which the Ethiopian army on Saturday said it now controlled.
Far from accepting Abiy’s declaration of victory, the Tigray leader asserted that “we are sure we’ll win.”
He also accused the Ethiopian forces of carrying out a “genocidal campaign” against the Tigray people.
Kushner’s Mideast trip: President Donald Trump’s son-inlaw and adviser Jared Kushner will travel to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week as part of negotiations to end a longtime boycott of Qatar.
Kushner, along with Mideast envoy Avi Berkowitz and a former special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, will try to negotiate with Gulf leaders over the dispute, a White House official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as the official was not authorized to publicly discuss the trip.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut ties to Qatar in June 2017 as part of a wider political dispute over Doha’s support of Islamists, its relationship with Iran and other matters. The four countries also launched an economic boycott.
Lawmakers from French President Emmanuel Macron’s party will rewrite the most criticized article of a proposed security law, involving a measure aimed at banning the publication of images of police officers with intent to cause them harm.
The move comes after tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday in Paris and across the country to reject the draft law.
In an apparent effort to quell criticism, the head of Macron’s party at the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, said Monday that “there is a need to clarify the measure.”
Filming police in France: