The Legitimate Government in Hawaii Series: Greg Wongham (dec.) Whistleblower's Research

The Legitimate Government in Hawaii Series: Greg Wongham (dec.) Whistleblower's Research

Reviewed by Amelia Gora (2023)

The following is a repost of Greg Wongham's research. Greg Wongham had a Whistleblower show on OLELO-TV called Corruption in Hawaii.

The following information is evidence of Corruption in Hawaii, including the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estates Trustees/KSBE/Kamehameha Schools, etc.:

Dirty Money, Dirty Politics and
Bishop Estate

Stealing the Legacy of a Hawaiian Princess

Sightings from The Catbird Seat

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PART I - The Stealing Begins....

PRINCESS BERNICE PAUAHI was born on December 19, 1831, the last in the royal lineage of Kamehameha the Great, conqueror and first king of the Hawaiian Islands.

As was the custom for Hawaiian royalty, it had been planned from childhood that Pauahi would marry her hanai brother, Lot Kamehameha. She doted upon her brother but declined to take him as a husband. Instead, the attractive young Pauahi met and fell in love with a commoner, a foreigner from Sandy Hill, New York -- Charles Reed Bishop.

The love between Princess Pauahi and the foreigner faced great opposition from her family, other ali'i and members of the community. But the young princess was intelligent and independent, and in June 1850, at age 18, she married the young "haole" businessman.

The Princess and her husband eventually won over many of their critics and their relationship came to be admired by Hawaiians and westerners alike, and she eventually reconciled with her family and the other ali'i.

Pauahi grew and developed as a young matron and counselor to her people. At the age of 25, she inherited over 16,000 acres of land from her parents. Other inheritances followed as other members of the royal family passed away. The greatest of the inheritances came from Princess Ruth, her first cousin. Ruth had declared Pauahi sole heir to her entire estate. The amount of land was mind-boggling: about 353,000 acres.

Ruth's gift to Pauahi made her the largest landowner and the richest woman in the Kingdom. At the same time, she presented Pauahi with the greatest challenge and responsibility of her life. Pauahi now owned a giant estate, and she would have to decide how it would be used.

The Bishops had a multitude of blessings, except one. They never had children of their own. Possibly from this came Pauahi's inspiration to use her legacy to establish the Kamehameha Schools for all the children of Hawaii.

On Thursday, October 16, 1884, the princess passed away. Charles was by her side.

The newspapers reported that a heavy downpour of rains reached a crescendo just about the time Pauahi died. In ancient days, the Hawaiians said when rain fell at a the time of a person's death or funeral, "Kulu ka waimaka, uwe `opua." (The tears fall; the clouds weep.), for the gods mingle their tears of affection with those who weep in sympathy and aloha.

Of all the eulogies that were held upon her death, perhaps that of Reverend J.A. Cruzan was the most moving and prophetic:

"The great loss which Hawaii sustained last Thursday was not that the last of this great line of High Chiefs died, nor that the possessor of great wealth died, but that a true woman died...True in all times and among all races...

That Bernice Pauahi Bishop was such a true woman her life bears witness....Refusing a crown, she so lived that she was crowned. Refusing to rule her people, she did what was better, she served them, and in no way so grandly as by her example....

'The world can do without its masters better than it can without its servants.'...For fifty-three years her royal life here has borne unswerving witness in favor of virtue and purity...

She hated that which was impure with an intense hatred. She had only loathing and contempt for that which was coarse and low. Place, power, wealth, nor influence could win her favor or regard if it was joined with degraded character. And her womanly example was all the more potent for good because it was so quiet...

The things that are most noisy are not the most powerful. Nay, things that make no noise, and make no pretension, may be really the most powerful. This quiet, modest, true womanly life has been for years, and still is, and will be for years to come, a mighty power for good here in Hawaii.

Only the God who loveth purity and righteousness can measure this one true woman's influence for good upon her people..."

- Source: PAUAHI: THE KAMEHAMEHA LEGACY,
by George Hu`eu Sanford Kanahele

It was from Pauahi's legacy that vast amounts of wealth eventually flowed, until the Bishop Estate became the wealthiest charitable organization in the United States. It is her estate that has been systematically looted over the last decades by persons "with degraded character" that the princess undoubtably would have viewed with only "loathing and contempt."

In 1997, responding to a surging tsunami of criticism from the faculty, students and alumni of the Kamehameha Schools, and from concerned citizens of all ethnic backgrounds in Hawaii, Governor Ben Cayetano took an unprecedented action and directed the state's attorney general, Margery Bronster, to investigate the practices of the Estate's five highly paid trustees.

But the attorney general was not the only one investigating the estate. The IRS had already been auditing the records of the estate for several months -- empowered by the "interim sanctions" reegulations which had been passed by Congress in early 1996. At the same time, the court-appointed "master" who is charged by the probate court with oversight of the operations of the estate, was digging deeper into the activities of the trustees than a long line of previous masters.

Suddenly the trustee's were, for the first time in the schools' 115-year history, under siege from all sides.

The full and sordid story of the looting of the estate is too long to relate here. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the financial losses, however, the Master's Report on the 109^th Annual Account of the Trustees revealed that the Estate's investment portfolio suffered substantial losses in 1994, the year under review. The records relating to the various investments showed that combined losses and loss reserves of $264,090,257 were recognized in fiscal year 1994 alone.

The short story is that, after long and hard-fought court battles, the five former trustees were forced to resign, and five interim trustees were selected to take their places until a new trustee selection process was created and implemented. The removal of the five former trustees was one of the non-negotiable conditions of the IRS to prevent the loss of the estate's tax-exempt status.

The long story can be found in the volumes of news articles and court proceedings in the on-line archives of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The removal of the incumbent trustees was good news, hailed by many as the beginning of the healing process....

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The Catbird Chronicles: Bishop Estate

1986 - Bishop Estate joins golf course designer Robert Trent Jones and North Carolina developer Clay Hamner in the purchase of 1,100 acres at Lake Manassas, Virginia.

1989 - Bishop Estate trustees approve the McKenzie Methane acquisition, with trustees, principle executives, managers, family members, business cohorts and other insiders co-investing millions of their personal money. Among the investors are the estate's tax-adviser, Mark McConaghy of Price Waterhouse.

1989 - HFH, a holding company originally comprised of four major investors, William E. Simon, Sr., Gerald L. Parsky, Larry B. Thrall, and Roy Doumani, to purchase HonFed Savings & Loan Association, sells approximately 23 percent of its ownership stake in the thrift.

1991 - Bishop Estate and partners set up RTJ Acquisition LP to develop the Lake Manassas property, which is to become the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club -- the object of controversy and a lawsuit in which the later owners of the club claimed fraud was involved in the sale. The purchasers allege Bishop Estate was both the buyer and the seller (BE trustee Henry Peters also served on the golf club's board of trustees), and also had failed to inform them of a $33 million development debt they would have to pay off -- to Bishop Estate.

1992 - Bishop Estate trustees invest $250 million of the trust's money in Goldman Sachs.

1992 - Bishop Estate invests $31 million in Mid Ocean Reinsurance Co. with partners J.P. Morgan & Co, Marsh & McLennan Co. and Texas deal-maker Richard Rainwater. While a director of Mid Ocean, estate trustee Henry Peters received substantial director's fees and received options to acquire 6,000 shares of Mid Ocean Stock.

1993 - Bishop Estate, The MacArthur Foundation, and Duke University Endowment Fund back the formation of a Boston merchant bank called Orion Capital Partners LP.

1993 - Robert Rubin, worth an estimated $100 million at the time, resigns Goldman Sachs to join the Clinton administration. Rubin makes a phone call to Bishop Estate and the estate "insures" Rubin's stake in Goldman Sachs for $100,000 a year -- a real "sweetheart deal" for poor Rubin?

1994 - Bishop Estate invests another $250 million in Goldman Sachs.

1994 - The records relating to the various investments held by the Trust Estate and its Pauahi Holdings, Inc. subsidiary, showed that combined losses and loss reserves of $264 million were recognized in fiscal year 1994.

1995 - The Wall Street Journal exposes the estate nationally with their in-depth, front-page article, Bishop's Gambit - Hawaiians Who Own Goldman Sachs Stake Play Clever Tax Game.

1995 - According to The Cheating of America: “Tax attorneys for Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand– the Washington, D.C.-based law and lobbying powerhouse whose members include the likes of Bob Dole and former treasury secretary Lloyd Bentsen – prepared a thirty-page confidential report for a client (Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate) in search of a new home. The attorneys surveyed the tax and legal consequences of relocating in 49 states (only Hawaii was excluded), then recommended a single location to their client: the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.”

1996 - Bishop Estate lends $1 million to Charles M. Harmon, Jr., an investment banker and former general partner at Goldman Sachs, and together with Larry L. Landry, chief investment officer of the MacArthur Foundation; and Brad Heppner, a consultant at Bain & Co. and former director of private investments at the MacArthur Foundation, they form Crossroads Group to purchase Bigler Investment Management, a Conn. firm that manages fund-of-fund accounts. Bigler's clients include: Connecticut State Treasury; Massachusetts' Pension Reserves Investment Management Board; Rhode Island Employees' Retirement System; City & Co. of San Francisco Retirement System; and pension funds of E.I. duPont de Nemours& Co.

1996 - The estate spends more than $330,000 on federal lobbying - most of it going to three firms to fight, unsuccessfully, the "interim sanctions" law that created penalties for employees or officers of charitable institutions who gain undue "excess benefits" from their positions. The three lobbying firms were Verner, Liipfert, Bernard, McPherson & Hand, a prominent Washington, D.C. firm that employs former Hawaii governor (and friend of Bill Clinton), John Waihee; Hecht Spencer & Associates; and Price Waterhouse. Other Verner firm members enlisted in the effort included former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and former Texas Governor Ann Richards. Also, enlisted to fight the "interim sanctions" regulations was the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

1996 - In October, Bobby Harmon, the estate's Risk Manager and president of P&C Insurance, reports suspected fraud and collusion between Trustee Henry Peters; Nathan Aipa, the estate's general counsel, and Marsh & McLennan, Inc. to the organizations' auditors, Coopers & Lybrand. In November, Harmon is terminated from both positions.

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The Chronicles Continue in Part II.

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IF YOU WANT TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT SOME OF THE CAREFULLY HIDDEN NESTS INHABITED BY BIRDS OF A FEATHER, JUST TRAIN YOUR FIELD GLASSES BELOW!

Bedford Property Investors, Inc. - From a Bedford Properties press release: Bedford Property Investors, Inc. announced the appointment of Scott R. Whitney as Sr. V.P. and CFO. Whitney, 45, has been serving as Sr. VP/CFO of WCI Communities (a Bishop Estate investment) of Naples, Florida since 1995.

Before joining WCI Communities, Whitney was with Equity Group Investments, Inc. Prior to joining Equity Group Investments, Whitney worked with Balcor/American Express, Inc. as V.P. Banking and Sr. Controller.

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From Midweek, 3/7/01, by Robert M. Rees: Years of pursuing the Bishop Estate trustees revealed more than the self-seeking greed and hubris of its five now-deposed incumbents....

Bina Chun, widely referred to as “the queen of the school,” (and wife of Kamehameha Schools’ president, Michael Chun) had her own rewards. In 1992, for example, Bedford Properties paid her a cool million just for negotiating the purchase price of the Kalele Kai condo project with the trustees....

For more, GO TO > > > Paradise Paved; The Grand (and dirty) Ko `Olina

Benson Forests - Kamehameha Schools’ 390,000-acre timberland investment in Michigan.

For more, GO TO > > > Part II

Blackstone Group - A New York-based private investment bank.

From The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider, by Al Martin:

GOVERNMENT FRAUD, CORPORATE FRAUD, AND MORE FRAUD

People in the media often ask me to give them examples of frauds that began in Iran-Contra and continue to this day, albeit under different names.

It’s essentially the same fraud and the same cast of characters.

The examples I always give (about which I have substantive information, since I was involved in all three of the original frauds and also involved in marketing some of the partnerships for the secondary fraud) are the Ocean Reef Development Group, Ltd., the Omni Development Group, Ltd., and the Tri-Lateral Investment Group, Ltd.

Who are the common players who are links between all three deals during Iran-Contra ?

They are Frank Carlucci and Richard Armitage.

When Frank Carlucci and Richard Armitage left government service immediately after Iran-Contra (they literally had to leave in order to avoid being subpoenaed as part of the overall coverup), they became principals with Pete Peterson, the infamous Republican player and GOPAC money launderer, in the Blackstone Investment Group, which is a big organization.

Then they simply continued the same real estate development frauds which were begun under Iran-Contra.

This time all the original deals went bankrupt. A certain set of banks got burned. The property reverted to them, and then they refinanced the property again through Blackstone.

Subsequently they entered into an arrangement with another similar sounding company (there’s always been some confusion) the Capstone Development Group, which was also a post-Iran-Contra creature.

They are two separate organizations.

Some people will try to claim that Capstone was simply a subsidiary of Blackstone.

It is not. It is a separate company. Look at the directors. They are none other than Larry Eagleburger and Bernie Aronson, former co-workers of Frank Carlucci and Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Armitage.

However, the real estate frauds continued essentially until the early 1990s. It’s interesting to note how former government officials who were in the Reagan-Bush Administration during Iran-Contra profit by subsequent frauds – post-Iran-Contra frauds, if you will.

For instance, in 1994-95, there was the great Mexican Diversion Fraud, when Blackstone immediately opened an office in Mexico City to take advantage of American taxpayers’ money being lent to Mexico vis-a-vis the OCED and OPEC and other United States lending and/or guaranteeing agencies.

The opportunity to commit fraud against the United States Treasury during that Mexican bailout was just like a walk in the park.

You buy a busted out Mexican company for pennies on the dollar, pump it up, make it look nice, make sure you’ve got your hands out for a twenty or thirty million dollar loan from somebody else, like the IMF, or a direct United States lending agency, and you would be given Brady Bonds which could then be rehypothecated.

And it was such a scam.

Dinnerstein alone documented $130 million of fraud committed by former officials of the Reagan-Bush Administration during the “Great Mexican Turkey Shoot” as it became known.

And then what happened?

The Russian bailout.

Blackstone suddenly opened an office in Moscow and promptly proceeded to do the same thing again. This time they were raping and pillaging the American taxpayer with the same corporate schemes to get money out of U.S. agencies and/or collateral guaranty or fidelity instruments that could be rehypothecated.

It’s exactly the same scheme.

It was another $38 million of fraud according to our estimates at the time.

To follow fraud from the Iran-Contra period and to continue to do it to this day – just look at where the Blackstone Investment Group is opening up offices in the world. . . .

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For more, GO TO > > > Birds that Drink from Cesspools; The Blackstone Group; Predators in Paradise

Bruce Nakaoka - Former investment manager at Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate.

Ex-estate workers to talk to Bronster

They were granted immunity from suits that could come up

By Honolulu Star-Bulletin Staff

Two former investment managers at Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate have agreed to comply with subpoenas issued by Attorney General Margery Bronster in the state's investigation of the $10 billion charitable trust.

Bruce Nakaoka and Eric Martinson agreed to meet with the attorney general before Nov. 26, after they were granted immunity from civil suits that may arise from their cooperation, said Deputy Attorney General Hugh Jones.

The agreement was approved today by Circuit Court Judge Kevin Chang.

In another Bishop Estate investigation, retired Circuit Judge Patrick K.S. Yim today said he met with the five estate trustees Monday to update them on the progress of his fact-finding report into management of the schools.

Yim did not disclose the nature of the discussion. He is required by court order to complete his report on or by Dec. 5.

None of the trustees commented on the meeting.

Critics of the trustees' management said Yim was wrong to privately meet with the group before he releases his report....

See also: Chubb Corporation; Dan Inouye

Dennis Fern - From the Kukui, Inc. website:

MANAGEMENT OF KUKUI OPERATING COMPANY

Dennis E. Fern - President

Mr. Fern is a graduate of Willamette University in Oregon with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics. A Certified Public Accountant, Mr. Fern worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers (formerly Coopers & Lybrand) in their auditing division.

In 1983, Mr. Fern joined Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KS), the largest private landowner in the state of Hawaii and an education trust, as their Internal Auditor.

In 1991, in his role as Internal Auditor, he became involved in KS' investment in coalbed methane projects in Alabama, Colorado, and New Mexico. In 1996, he took over responsibility for KUKUI, INC., a wholly owned taxable subsidiary of KS, which had been assigned KS' interest in the coalbed methane project (aka the McKenzie Methane deal).

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Testimonial letter to The Woodlands Resort:

"It's taken me quite a while to calm down after our stay at The Woodlands Resort & Conference Center. I thought it best to take some time to gather my thoughts and I now feel able to put in writing my views on your staff and facility. After Liz Edwards, of our Houston office, and I toured your property and met with you and Dana Denton, I believed The Woodlands would meet our every need. I was wrong! I apologize for the use of some very strong "f" words to describe the experience of our group…………..fun, fantastic, fabulous, or some "e" words…….exceptional, extraordinary, excellent, or a plain old "g" word……great!

The Woodlands exceeded our every expectation. Bob……Mahalo (Thank you) for making this years annual gathering (our fourth annual holiday gathering) truly a memorable one. We speak of the aloha spirit here in the islands. We found an example of it at The Woodlands."

Dennis E Fern
President
KUKUI, INC.

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For more, GO TO > > > The Sinking of the Ehime Maru

Eric Martinson - A Kamehameha Schools manager from 1984 to 1996, at one point managed the estate’s substantial financial holdings, which included a multibillion interest in Goldman Sachs.

From the RICO lawsuit - Harmon v. Federal Insurance Co, Marsh & McLennan, Trustees of Bishop Estate, et al.:

o) Unison Pacific - As a subsidiary of KSBE, General Liability, Directors & Officers Liability and other insurance coverages for this entity were combined under KSBE’s master policies, and premium charges were allocated according to the entity’s risk exposures. After this arrangement had been in effect for several years, Eric Martinson, KSBE Assets Manager and officer of Unison Pacific, directed KSBE’s accounting department to reallocate Unison’s premiums. This had the effect of KSBE paying the premiums for this subsidiary.

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From Harmon’s letters to the Hawaii Insurance Commissioner: Deceptive Business Practices; Conflicts of Interest; Mail Fraud.

At the direction of Henry Peters and other managers for KSBE, premiums that should have been charged to subsidiaries were actually paid by KSBE. One example is Eric Martinson's memorandum of September 24, 1996 to Ramona Hinck regarding the reallocation of premiums for the SoCal, AFCO, Unison and SINO subsidiaries. As a result of this directive, premium charges that had been previously allocated by me to these subsidiaries were transferred to KSBE. Eric Martinson was the Financial Assets Manager for KSBE, and was also the Secretary/Treasurer, Sino Finance Group LLC, and Vice President, Unison Pacific Investment (US) Limited.

Under the lease agreements for various commercial properties that are owned and managed by the estate, insurance costs are directly passed on to the lessees and tenants through monthly maintenance fees. As a result of the overcharges by M&M, and the improper allocations of premiums and claims costs to the various subsidiaries, these lessees and tenants were wrongfully and deceptively billed a share of these higher costs. The various commercial properties would include Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, Windward Mall, Bishop Commerce Center (Georgia), Desert Springs Marketplace (California), and Velvet Cloak Inn (North Carolina), among others.

These monthly maintenance billings and payments are normally done by mail and involve interstate commerce since many of KSBE’s properties, and the home offices of various lessees, are located on the mainland. As a result, these acts may be subject to the 1994 Federal Insurance Crimes Act, which covers crimes by persons engaged in the business of insurance whose activities affect interstate commerce. ...

Gene and Nora Lum - From freerepublic: Lum Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud -

Tulsa, Okla (AP) 8/13/98 - Democratic fund-raiser Gene K.H. Lum changed his plea in a tax fraud case to guilty Thursday as part of an agreement that seeks his cooperation in other investigations.

Lum, who pleaded guilty in 1997 to making illegal donations to Democratic campaigns, admitted he filed tax returns that claimed more than $7.1 million in false deductions for him and his wife.

Lum, 59, faces up to six years in prison and $500,000 in fines at a Nov 23 sentencing. . . .

Under the pleas agreement, the government agreed not to seek indictments against his wife, Nora, or their corporations. . . .

The Lums, who operated a Tulsa-based gas pipeline company at the time of the violations, pleaded guilty last year to a charge of felony conspiracy for laundering $50,000 in illegal donations to 1994 congressional campaigns.

Their daughter, Trisha C. Lum, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation in a separate campaign finance incident.

Gene and Norn Lum each received 10 months in prison and $30,000 fines in that case.

The tax charges stemmed from information uncovered by independent counsel Daniel S. Pearson during his investigation of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. Pearson closed his inquiry when Brown was killed in an airplane crash. He transferred his findings about other people to the Justice Dept for continued investigation and prosecution.

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Comments in the freerepublic forum: . . . Of some interest to me was the fact that the golf course Michael Brown (son of Ron Brown) was given a membership to (and which Bill Clinton often uses ...) in suburban Virginia was owned by the Bishop Estate of Hawaii. . . . Bishop put close to 100 million into a company called McKenzie Methane Gas a few years before Dynamic. Bishop also bought into a Red Chip bank with Mochtar Riady's brother in law. Bishop hired as its Washington law firm Verner Liipert whose lobbyist is ex Gov. John Waihee. Waihee appointed 4 of the 5 Bishop Trustees. Waihee attends Clinton coffees. Waihee appointed Sen. Akaka. Verneer Liipert has another big name partner ex Sen. George Mitchell. Mitchell's son in law was president of Lum's company Dynamic Energy. Bishop owns 11% of Goldman Sachs. Sec of Treasury Robert Rubin's blind trust managed by Bishop, etc, etc. (abwehr, 8/13/98)

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George Mitchell - Former Senate Majority Leader; lobbyist for the tobacco industry.

From The Courier-Journal, Dec 28, 2001:

Mitchell to Oversee Fund for Red Cross

NEW YORK – Former Sen. George Mitchell was named yesterday to oversee the $667 million American Red Cross fund created to help victims of the terrorists attacks.

The charity also announced that it will exceed its goal of distributing $275 million in aid from the Liberty Fund by Dec. 31. It said it expects to hand out $317.5 million by year’s end.

Mitchell, who is from Maine, has spent his post-Senate life trying to negotiate peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

As independent overseer of the Liberty Fund, Mitchell will supervise the development and carrying out of a plan to distribute the fund’s balance, said Harold Decker, chief executive of the Red Cross. The plan is scheduled for release by the end of January....

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Bishop hired as its Washington law firm Verner Liipfert whose lobbyist is ex Gov. John Waihee. Waihee appointed 4 of the 5 Bishop Trustees. Waihee attends Clinton coffees. Waihee appointed Sen. Akaka. Verner Liipfert has another big name partner ex -Sen. George Mitchell. Mitchell's son in law was president of Lum's company Dynamic Energy. Bishop owns 11% of Goldman Sachs. Sec of Treasury Robert Rubin's blind trust managed by Bishop, etc, etc. (abwehr, 8/13/98)

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In the 02/18/00 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser, reporter Sally Apgar revealed that the ousted Bishop Estate trustees used the trust money to "enlist" the aid of U. S. Sens. Dan Inouye and Daniel Akaka in 1995 to influence fellow members of Congress to vote against "interim sanctions" regulations that threatened the trustee's $1 million-a-year paychecks. According to Apgar:

Thirteen confidential memos during the fall of 1995 through April 1996 detail the trustees' strategy against the bill . . .

The memos express the trustees' intent "to kill the measure" and their recruitment of influential contacts such as Inouye, Akaka and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. They also targeted others, including Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynahan of New York and even White House insiders such as Leon Panetta, then President Clinton's chief of staff, to win support. . . .

The memos give a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes political power and influence the former trustees once wielded and describe a costly, intensive effort to protect their interests.

As previously reported, the ousted trustees hired former Gov. John Waihee and his Washington, D.C.-based law firm Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPhearson Hand to lobby against the federal legislation...

Other Verner firm members enlisted in the effort included former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. . . .

The state Attorney General's Office has said previously that the trust paid the firm more than $900,000 for its lobbying efforts on intermediate sanctions legislation between 1995 and 1998.

Waihee alone was in charge of swaying Erskine Bowles, then assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff, and Doug Sosnick, then assistant to the president and director of political affairs. . . .

Mark McConaghy of PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, a longtime tax adviser to the trust, was charged with contacting Leslie Samuels, then assistant secretary for tax policy. . . .

Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) is also mentioned in the memos. For example, the Oct. 12 memo said, "Congressman Abercrombie is prepared to speak to Rep. Gibbons, the ranking minority member, Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) and Andrew Jacobs, Jr. (D-Ind) as well as GOP Rep. Nancy Johnson. . . .

Gilbert Tam - From RICO lawsuit Harmon v. Federal Insurance Company; P&C Insurance Company; Marsh & McLennan, Inc. et al.:

Gilbert Tam is a Director, P&C Insurance Company, Inc. and the former Administrative Group Director for Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate. Tam is currently an officer with Bank of Hawaii, which has substantial financial connections with KSBE.

Tam was also a co-investor in the McKenzie Methane deal at the time he was a KSBE manager. Plaintiff alleges that Tam's actions, through his complicity, deceptions, and breach of fiduciary duties, in collusion with some or all of trustees of KSBE, with other managers and employees of KSBE, with other officers and directors of P&C, and with outside contractors, attorneys, politicians and others, constituted a conspiracy to defraud P&C and the beneficiaries of the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop; racketeering; mail fraud; wire fraud; extortion; and violation of IRS interim sanctions regulations. . . .

For more, GO TO > > > Predators in Paradise

Goldman Sachs - The Goldman Sachs Group is a leading global investment banking and securities firm with three principal business lines: Investment banking; Trading and Principal Investments; and Asset Management and Securities Services.

From Goldman Sachs, by Lisa Endlich:

GOLDMAN SACHS had been expanding the size of its partnership steadily for decades. There had been fifty partners in 1973; there were seventy-five in 1983 and one hundred fifty by 1993. But as the size of the partnership increased, the profits of the firm had to grow at breakneck speed if existing partners' income levels were to be maintained. . . .

With his ascendency in 1990, Robert Rubin openly discussed with the partnership the need for an expanding pie . . .

In addition to the firm's limited partners (retired partners who choose to leave capital in the firm), Goldman Sachs has taken on three groups of financial partners. Sumitomo's investments in 1986 entitled the Japanese bank to 12.5% of the firm's annual profits. Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, the giant Hawaiian education trust, which also made two major cash infusions into the firm, first in 1992 and again in 1994, receives about 11% of what the firm makes every year. Finally, a group of insurers has injected $225 million into the capital structure.

Goldman Sachs will go down in history as the last major partnership on Wall Street. . . .

Quoting one former partner:

"Greed changed the firm, and the view was to take as much
risk as we can, and make it as fast as we can."

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"1986," Institutional Investor magazine proclaimed, "was the year they sold Wall Street." During the five preceding years John Weinberg had watched his major competitors incorporate, merge, or simply cease to exist....

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From USA Today, May 3, 1999: Trust Scandal Haunts Goldman -- Sullied Bishop Estate Owns 10% of Bank: . . . Daytime television has nothing on the Bishop Estate, a charitable trust that will make a huge windfall in Goldman Sachs' initial public offering expected Tuesday... The trustees of the estate are mired in an explosive scandal with subplots of greed, cronyism, sex and suicide that are worthy of the tawdriest soap opera. . . .

Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate was set up 115 years ago to educate Hawaiian children as stipulated in the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last direct descendant of the king who united the islands. With assets of about $10 billion, it is one of the richest trusts in the USA and the largest private landowner in Hawaii. . .

Among its assets: a 10% stake in Goldman Sachs, the leading investment bank that is ending its long reign as a private partnership. When Goldman goes public, the estate stands to at least triple the value of its $500 million investment. . .

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From The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, May 4, 1999: Goldman Sachs Leaves Little To Chance With Red-Hot IPO.

The IPO which raised $3.66 billion, ranks as the largest financial-services IPO ever ...

Top executives at Goldman, such as Mr. Paulson, received shares in the company valued at as much as $200 million. . .

Goldman itself sold 51 million shares. Two Goldman shareholders, Kamehameha Activities Association and Sumitomo Bank Capital Markets, a unit of Sumitomo Bank, also sold nine million shares each, leaving them with Goldman stakes of 4% and 5%, respectively. . . .

For more GO TO > > > Dirty Gold in Goldman Sachs?

Hanford's Creations, Inc. - A company that makes Christmas decorations. Owned by Elizabeth Hanford Dole, a friend of Mark McConaghy of PricewaterhouseCoopers, before she sold it to a group headed by Bishop Estate. The estate promptly lost money on the deal.

Henry Peters - Ex-trustee of Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate.

From the RICO lawsuit : Civil No. CV 99 00304-DAE - Harmon v. Federal Insurance Co., P&C Insurance Co. Inc.; Marsh & McLennan, Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers, et al: . . .

Defendant Trustee Henry H. Peters, was appointed in 1984 by the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii, acting as individuals, and was entrusted with the fiduciary duty to administer the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop for the education of the children of Hawaii...

Defendant Peters is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of P&C. Peters has also served on the Board of Directors of Mid-Ocean Reinsurance Co. (a Bermuda company); Underwriters Capital (Merritt) Insurance Co. (a Bermuda company); SoCal Holdings, Inc.; and numerous other companies owned by, or related to, KSBE....

Beginning around March 1996, Harmon began questioning what appeared to be excessive premium charges being made by Marsh & McLennan ... and for fees M&M was billing to P&C.

For the next several months, Plaintiff was subjected to threats, intimidation and various abuses from Aipa and Kam for questioning the excessive fees of M&M . . . Harmon asked Aipa about the status of his transfer (to P&C). Aipa's response was that it wasn't going to happen because "arms-length was no longer an issue," (referring to previous legal opinions from Price Waterhouse that the IRS might revoke the Trust's tax-exempt status if it did not maintain arms-length from its taxable subsidiaries)....

* * *

From Equity No. 2048, Petition of the Attorney General on Behalf of the Trust Beneficiaries to Remove and Surcharge Trustees:

"The Trustees have been unfaithful to the Will and the purpose of the Trust. They have failed to comply with clear directives of the Will. They have subordinated the sole purpose of the Trust to their personal gain. They have squandered Trust assets intended for education by their excessive compensation, and by imprudent and improper Trust management and investments.

They have violated Hawaii statutes and court orders. They have engendered hostility between themselves and the Beneficiaries whose interests the Trustees were appointed to serve...

Peters became lead trustee for asset management in 1993 and assumed responsibility for Trust investments and for due diligence on prospective investments....

Peters as lead trustee purposely withheld information on existing and potential investments from his co-Trustees, dismantled the Trust's internal audit function, instructed staff employees to withhold information from the co-Trustees, and used his position to approve Trust payment of improper non-Trust expenditures....

As to Peters, the effect of these violations has been that Trust assets have been mismanaged and misspent to the detriment of the Trust purpose. . . .

Trustees Peters, Wong, and Lindsey have violated their duty of loyalty to the Beneficiaries by using their positions as Trustees and by using Trust assets and opportunities to benefit themselves and their relatives and friends....

In 1992, the Trust invested approximately $31 million in Mid Ocean, Ltd. (Mid Ocean), a Bermuda-based insurance company, and acquired 310,000 Mid Ocean Class A shares. . . . In 1993, when Matsuo Takabuki retired as a Trustee of the Trust, Peters succeeded to Takabuki's seat as a director of Mid Ocean. . . . Peters served as a Mid Ocean director until early 1998. . . . Peters' service as a Mid Ocean director fell within his duties as Trustee and was a Trust opportunity. . . . While a director of Mid Ocean, Peters received substantial director's fees and received options to acquire 6,000 shares of Mid Ocean stock. . . . The Mid Ocean fees and stock options are assets that belong to the Trust and not to Peters individually. . . . Peters has enriched himself at the expense of the Beneficiaries by retaining the fees and stock options for his personal benefit. (Note: Marsh & McLennan, and its subsidiary, Guy Carpenter, were major players in the creation and management of Mid-Ocean.)...

* * *

From Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 4/14/99, by Rick Daysog:

EMBATTLED EMPIRE . . . Larry Landry, former chief financial officer for the $4 billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is a co-investor with the estate in a Boston-based investment fund and a Florida apartment complex, describes Peters as a savvy and thorough investment manager. . . . Deal promoters often approach large foundations and charitable trusts thinking they have deep pockets. But Peters brings a healthy skepticism to anyone who brings an investment to the estate, according to Landry....

"Henry is extremely bright and has the right kind of conservative (investment) philosophy," said Landry, who now serves as CEO of Florida-based Westport Realty Advisers....

In his review of the estate's 1994-1996 accounts, court-appointed master Colbert Matsumoto and the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen said the estate -- during Peters' tenure as acting asset manager -- generated an embarrassing return on investment of minus 1%. During that period, the trust set aside more than $240 million in reserve for future losses....

That woeful performance came as Wall Street was in the midst of a record bull run in which investors could have made double-digit returns just by putting their money in an index fund...

Peters, charges stand out in lengthy Bishop Estate investigation. The state's exhaustive investigation into the Bishop Estate appears to focus on trustee Henry Peters as a central figure in the two-year controversy that's rocked the multibillion-dollar charitable trust....

In a September Probate Court petition to permanently remove several trustees, Attorney General Margery Bronster alleged that Peters took part in repeated acts of self-dealing and mismanagement. The state's charges include: ... Between 1993 and 1998, Peters received options to acquire 6,000 shares of stock as well as substantial director's fees from a Bermuda-based insurance company, Mid Ocean Ltd. The estate was a big investor in Mid Ocean. Peters has since declined to exercise the stock options, which would have been worth more that $400,000 under Mid Oceans's 1993 merger with competitor Exel Ltd. [another Marsh & McLennan financial venture]....

Peters directed trust managers and the estate's former Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center subsidiary to hire his friends and relatives for unbudgeted positions and outside consulting work, according to the state. The employees included former state Rep. Terrance Tom, local attorney Albert Jeremiah and Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee and former state Sen. Clayton Hee...

Starting in 1995, a company headed by Peters' nephew received more than $1.3 million in nonbid and subcontracting work from the estate. . . . The company, Rhino Roofing, conducted renovation work on Peters' Maili home....

Since 1995, Peters' former employer, Dura Constructors Inc., received more that $2.7 million in nonbid work from the estate. . . . In one case, Dura billed the estate $465,000 to build an athletic locker room at Kamehameha Schools that was later deemed unsafe for student use. The trust would up correcting the building deficiencies itself and did not pursue Dura for the faulty work. Dura also conducted work on Peters' Maili home....

Along with his fellow trustees, Peters received compensation well above that of comparable organizations. In 1997, each trustee earned about $840,000 in commissions.

Peters and fellow trustees also spent more than $900,000 of trust money to lobby Congress against the passage of federal legislation limiting salaries for board members of charitable trusts....

* * *

Reporter Sally Apgar, in the 02/18/00 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser, revealed that the ousted Bishop Estate trustees used the trust money to "enlist" the aid of U. S. Sens. Dan Inouye and Daniel Akaka in 1995 to influence fellow members of Congress to vote against "interim sanctions" regulations that threatened the trustee's $1 million-a-year paychecks.

According to Apgar:

Thirteen confidential memos during the fall of 1995 through April 1996 detail the trustees' strategy against the bill . . .

The memos give a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes political power and influence the former trustees once wielded and describe a costly, intensive effort to protect their interests.

As previously reported, the ousted trustees hired former Gov. John Waihee and his Washington, D.C.-based law firm Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPhearson Hand to lobby against the federal legislation... Other Verner firm members enlisted in the effort included former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards....

The state Attorney General's Office has said previously that the trust paid the firm more than $900,000 for its lobbying efforts on intermediate sanctions legislation between 1995 and 1998.

Mark McConaghy of PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, a longtime tax adviser to the trust, was charged with contacting Leslie Samuels, then assistant secretary for tax policy....

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 5/21/99, by Rick Daysog:

It is alleged that trustees Peters and Wong
helped conceal $350 million

Two weeks after a state judge temporarily removed four of the five trustees of the Bishop Estate, the state attorney general's office today filed court papers in a separate proceeding spelling out why trustees Henry Peters and Richard "Dickie" Wong should be temporarily ousted from their $1 million-a-year jobs. . . . In an 89-page proposed findings of fact, Deputy Attorney General Hugh Jones argued that Peters and Wong helped conceal $350 million in trust income that should have been spent on the estate-run Kamehameha Schools, paid themselves $131,000 more than they were entitled to and failed to adopt strict conflict-of-interest policies at the trust....

The result of these actions deprived scores of native Hawaiian children of an education at the Kamehameha Schools, Jones said. . . .

HonFed Savings & Loan - Another major investment for Bishop Estate, later sold to Bank of America.

March 21, 2003:

In the United States Court of Federal Claims

Nos. 95-660C and 95-797C

Filed March 21, 2003

BANK OF AMERICA, FSB, et al.,

Plaintiffs

THE UNITED STATES,

Defendant

~ ~ ~

FACTS

In 1986, a group of investors, led by the former Secretary of the Treasury, the late William E. Simon, Sr., approached the Bank Board about the possibility of acquiring HonFed, a then-failing thrift based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Recognizing the need to recapitalize HonFed, the investors proposed a plan by which the thrift would be converted from a mutual association to a stock association, with its stock to be sold to raise capital for the resulting institution. The proposal additionally envisioned the creation of HFH, a holding company that was to be wholly owned by the investors and created for the sole purpose of acquiring the thrift. Finally, the proposal anticipated the issuance of approximately $35 million in subordinated debentures to further bolster the thrift’s flagging capital levels....

On June 17, 1986, HFH, together with HonFed, submitted a formal application to the Bank Board seeking approval of the proposed restructuring and recapitalization of HonFed....

On August 29, 1986, the Bank Board adopted Resolution No. 86-910 approving HFH’s application to acquire HonFed....

On August 6, 1989, Congress enacted FIRREA, directing, inter alia, the promulgation of regulations setting forth new minimum capital standards. The resulting regulations, issued by the Office of Thrift Supervision (“OTS”) on November 6, 1989, provided that unidentifiable intangible assets, such as the goodwill arising from HFH’s acquisition of HonFed, would have to be excluded when determining compliance with the statute’s core capital requirements. The regulations additionally restricted HonFed’s ability to include subordinated debt in regulatory capital.

Shortly after the promulgation of these regulations, OTS informed HonFed that, based on its quarterly financial report, HonFed was in danger of failing one or more of the new capital requirements. Although HonFed objected to the conclusion that it was required to meet the more stringent FIRREA capital requirements rather than the capital requirements set forth in Resolution No. 86-910, HonFed nonetheless took steps to bring itself into compliance with the new capital standards. Toward that end, HonFed conducted a private equity placement involving the sale of preferred stock to a Hawaiian charitable trust, the Kamehameha Schools, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate. As a result of that placement, HFH relinquished approximately 23 percent of its ownership stake in the thrift but raised an additional $45 million to be counted toward the thrift’s regulatory capital.

HonFed continued operating under this shared ownership for an additional two years, but on October 10, 1991, BankAmerica Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary, the Bank, acquired ownership and control of HFH and HonFed through the purchase of the outstanding shares of HonFed and HFH. Following this acquisition, both HonFed and HFH became wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bank. Within the next year, each entity was abolished, HonFed through a conversion of its shares into shares of the Bank and HFH through a liquidation and dissolution. It is on the basis of these transactions that the Bank now claims to stand as the successor in interest to the rights and interests of HonFed and HFH....

OPINION

WIESE, Judge

Plaintiff Bank of America, Federal Savings Bank (“the Bank”) is the successor in interest to H.F. Holdings, Inc. (“HFH”), a bank holding company, and Honolulu Federal Savings & Loan Association (“HonFed”), a thrift institution. The Bank is joined in this suit by Beverly W. Thrall (successor by operation of law to the claims of Larry B. Thrall) and Roy Doumani, members of the original investor group that formed HFH and acquired, through their investment in HFH, a majority ownership interest in HonFed. (1) ...

------------------------------

(1) The original investor group consisted of four individuals: William E. Simon, Sr., Gerald L. Parsky, Larry B. Thrall, and Roy Doumani, each of whom filed suit here in his individual capacity. William Simon and Gerald Parsky subsequently withdrew their actions, while Larry Thrall (now represented by his successor in interest, Beverly Thrall) and Roy Doumani have been permitted to join in the Bank’s claim as intervenors pursuant to RCFC 17...

-------------------------

For more on William Simon and Gerald Parsky, GO TO > > > The Opal File: A Secret History of Australia and New Zealand; William Simon Says

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China - From The Straits Times-Asia, 10/31/00:

ANTI-GRAFT AUDITS TO INCLUDE TOP LEADERS

China's chief auditor plans to take his fight against corruption to almost the top of the country's political system, according to state media.

This follows the discovery of US$11 billion in mismanaged funds at Chinese government offices and businesses.

The astounding sum, reported by Mr. Li Jinhua, Auditor-General of China's National Audit Office, is one of the strongest indications of how mismanagement is in China. . . .

"Corruption thrives under a lack of efficient supervision," the paper said . . .

According to earlier official reports, the auditing led to the discovery of misuse of funds at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the Construction Bank of China, causing losses worth more than 10 billion yuan (S$2 billion). . . .

Mr. Li's auditors found that individual officials and managers had misappropriated 590 million yuan. But this marked only a fraction of the 96.17 billion yuan mismanaged, if not embezzled, by offices and firms, the China Daily said.

The reports did not give details of how the funds were misused . . . But in previous reports over the past 18 months, Mr. Li has criticised officials for diverting government subsidies and spending lavishly on offices. There has also been talk of speculation in stocks. . . .

* * *

Asia 2000, 11/8/00, by Jeremy Page:

CHINA SENTENCES 14 TO DEATH IN SMUGGLING CASE

China sentenced 14 people to death on Wednesday, including senior police and customs officials, in the first verdicts of a multi-billion dollar smuggling scandal, the biggest corruption case of the Communist era.

Those sentenced to death included the former customs chief and deputy mayor of the southern port of Xiamen, and the former deputy police chief of southern Fujian province . . .

But state media said the mastermind of the smuggling scam, businessman Lai Changxing had fled overseas after being tipped off by police. ...

Lai's Yuanhua Group smuggled more that $6 billion worth of cars, luxury goods, oil and raw materials in the early 1990s, paying off city and provincial officials to facilitate and cover up duty evasion, Xinhua said.

"The group also used money and women to seduce a number of government officials for the convenience of their smuggling activities," Xinhua said.

The smuggling "caused serious damage to the normal economic order, brought huge financial losses to the state, led to rampant corruption, and impaired the social, political and economic life in China," it said. . . .

The death sentences included Xiamen's former customs chief Yang Qianxian and former vice mayor Lan Pu, and former Fujian deputy police chief Zhuang Rushun, Xinhua said.

Ye Jichen, head of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Xiamen, was also given a death sentence . . .

Investcorp - Investcorp is a leading global investment group with offices in London, New York and Bahrain. Since 1982, it has completed transactions in North America and Western Europe, with a total acquisition value of approximately $19 billion.

* * *

May 24, 1996

Stock offering by Saks a boon
to Bishop Estate

Its holdings gain more than $24 million in value on
the first day of trading

By Rick Daysog, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Bishop Estate's investment in Saks Fifth Avenue increased by more than $24 million in a single day.

The charitable trust owns 4.1 percent of the upscale department store chain's parent, Saks Holdings Inc., whose shares soared with the successful launch of its initial public offering Wednesday.

The stock, priced late Tuesday at $25 per share, closed Wednesday at $34.621/2 on the New York Stock Exchange, a 38.5 percent increase.

That gave Bishop Estate a paper profit of $24.1 million for the 2.5 million Saks shares it owns. Saks' stock closed on Thursday at $32.50 a share but regained 50 cents on Friday to close at $33.

The estate stressed that it has not realized any gains because it has not sold any of its stock.

"We're very pleased with the results there," said Kekoa Paulsen, spokesman for the estate. "(But) bottom line, it's a paper gain."

Paulsen said the estate is positive about Saks' future and its current management, noting that the investment in Saks is for the long-term. Bishop Estate purchased its stake in Saks Holdings back in March 1993 from Bahrain-based Investcorp S.A. for about $50 million.

Bishop Estate, the state's largest private landowner, lists about $1 billion in assets but critics have said that figure may be as high as $10 billion.

Founded in 1867, Saks Fifth Avenue was privately held and operated as a division of Gimbel Bros. Inc. until it was purchased by British giant BAT Industries Plc in 1973. In 1990, BAT sold Saks to Investcorp for $1.6 billion.

The retailer currently owns 45 Saks Fifth Avenue department stores, 19 Off 5th outlet stores and the Folio catalog.

In Hawaii, Saks operates an off-price outlet at the Waikele Center and has expressed an interest in opening a department store in central Honolulu.

In Wednesday's public offering, Investcorp sold 16 million shares in Saks, or about a quarter of the retailer's equity. Saks said it would use the proceeds to pay down debt, which it listed as nearly $976 million.

An offering prospectus said that Bishop Estate's 4.1 percent stake represents the fifth largest block of the company's stock. Investcorp is the largest with 17.3 percent of the Saks' equity, followed by SIPCO Ltd., a Cayman Island-based investor, with 17.28 percent.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin Business

( http://starbulletin.com/96/05/24/business/story1.html )

~ ~ ~

For much more, GO TO > > > Investigating Investcorp

JMB Realty Corp. - A major US commercial real estate investment firm which owns, develops and manages real estate projects throughout North America, including regional malls, hotels, planned communities, and office complexes.

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 6/16/00 - Kamehameha Losses Top $335 Million - Despite unprecedented financial growth, the Kamehameha Schools recorded more than $335 million in losses and writeoffs during the past decade. . . . The troubled investments underscore criticisms that the estate’s embattled former trustees mismanaged assets and took ill-advised bets on speculative ventures. . . .

The estate’s largest write-off was for $50 million. It involved a 1987 investment in Cadillac Fairview Corp, a Toronto-based office and retail property developer.

The estate, following the advice of Chicago-based JMB Realty Corp, joined 38 institutional investors in the $2.6 billion leveraged buyout of Cadillac Fairview, but the investment went south after the mainland recession of the early 1990s forced the developer into bankruptcy protection. . . .

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial, 1/30/98: Waiahole Ditch - The Waiahole Ditch was built in 1916 by the sugar companies and was operated by them to transport water from Windward to Leeward and Central Oahu to irrigate sugar cane. But with sugar dead the ditch’s current owner, Amfac/JMB, has considered shutting down the facility or reducing service. For this reason, Governor Cayetano wants to buy the ditch for $8.5 million, with an additional $1.7 million to be spent on improvements and operation costs. . . .

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 2/18/98: Liberty House to Eliminate 500 Jobs . . . Liberty House Stores is eliminating 500 jobs, or more than 10% of its work force, in the wake of the weak local economy and the growing Asian economic crisis. . . . The downsizing is the worst in Liberty House’s 149-year history.... Liberty House, a unit of Illinois-based JMB Realty Corp, operates 11 department stores and 30 resort and specialty shops in Hawaii and Guam.... Its annual sales are in the $400 million range....

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 3/19/98: Liberty House Bankrupt . . . Liberty House Stores, Hawaii’s largest and oldest department stores chain, filed for bankruptcy protection this morning. . . . The company filed for Chapter 11 ... listing assets of $284.2 million and liabilities of $248.4 million. . . . Liberty House becomes the largest Hawaii company to file for bankruptcy reorganization . . . Founded in 1849, Liberty House is a unit of ... JMB Realty Corp, which acquired the department store chain when it bought out then-parent Amfac Inc. in 1988....

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 10/9/98: Judge: Law Firm Can’t Work for Liberty House . . . A federal judge today ruled that a New York law firm could not work for Liberty House because it also represents some of the retailer’s major creditors....

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Lloyd King ruled that the firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, has conflicts of interest because it represents major banks and other creditors in the bankruptcy....

JMB argued Cleary, Gottlieb has a conflict because it represents creditors claiming more that $140 million in the Liberty House bankruptcy.

Those clients include Bank of America NT&SA; Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner& Smith; Oaktree Capital Management LLC; Sanwa Bank; Capital Management LLC; and Canyon Partners...

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 5/6/99: Liberty House is Hit with $138 Mil Claim . . . The Liberty House retail chain has been hit with a claim for $138 million in allegedly unpaid taxes and interest, adding a new difficulty to it already complex bankruptcy reorganization effort....

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 5/9/00: Liberty House Parent Settles Part of IRS Tax Claim . . . Liberty House parent JMB Realty Corp will pay a reduced $4.2 million tax claim to the IRS, answering a major tax question that has stalled the Liberty House bankruptcy since last year.

The IRS last week filed an amended claim in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, cutting its original bill from about $103 million to $4.2 million for 1992 through 1994.

The actual liability to Liberty House, then a member of a consolidated group whose taxes were paid by JMB affiliate Nortbbrook Corp, is expected to be about $500,000 . . . but even though the tax logjam has been unclogged, another IRS claim totaling about $35 million for the years 1995 through 1996 still remains.

JMB believes its tax payments for those years are in order. The IRS recently began an audit of Northbrook’s taxes, a process that could take several years...

* * *

Pacific Business News, 9/1/00: ERS Forecloses in Kaanapali - The state Employees’ Retirement System is foreclosing on two Kaanapali Beach golf courses, claiming in a lawsuit that golf course owner Amfac/JMB Hawaii LLC defaulted on $77.4 million in loans and interest earlier this year.

ERS, which invests retirement funds for state and county employees, is pulling the plug on a $66 million mortgage loan it provided to Amfac/JMB for the 18-hole, championship North and South golf courses that serve the sprawling West Maui resort destination. The 1^st Circuit Court lawsuit ERS filed on Aug 24 is five inches thick....

* * *

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 11/16/00: Final Harvest for Sugar Fields - “See my eyes?” asks Joe Maneja. “Not angry. Just sad. No one can help the company. No one can fix it.” Maneja is one of a crew of about a dozen Lihue Plantation heavy-equipment operators and haul-cane truck drivers eating lunch at a field station near Wailua Falls...

It is the last field to be harvested this year. It is the last Amfac field to be harvested ever.

Maneja, a 28-year old Amfac employee, is one of about 400 at Lihue Plantation and Kekaha Sugar Co who will be unemployed at the close of business tomorrow, when Amfac shuts down its two sugar operations....

It is the largest layoff of agricultural workers in Kauai’s history and will cut the island’s farm labor force of 850 almost in half. But for each of the employees, it is a loss of a way of life....

Sugar was king for more than 100 years. . . . The two Amfac/JMB sugar mills that will shut down tomorrow represent half of the surviving four sugar mills in Hawaii.

Sugar was first grown commercially in Hawaii at Koloa Plantation on Kauai in 1835. At one time there were 32 plantations in Hawaii. Collectively, they imported the 385,000 workers from Asia, Europe and North America who created Hawaii’s unique multi-cultural society.

Lihue Plantation, which will officially close its doors tomorrow, has been producing sugar for 151 years. Kekaha Sugar Co, which also shuts down tomorrow, dates back to 1878.

Both are owned by Amfac/JMB, which traces its roots to a ship chandlery, Hackfeld & Co, started on Kauai by Hendrich Hackfeld, a German sea captain.

The firm, which remained in German ownership, was seized by the U.S. government during World War I and auctioned off to a group of Hawaii businessmen who changed its name to American Factors. In 1966 the name was shortened to Amfac and in 1988 the company was purchased by JMB Realty of Chicago and its name became Amfac/JMB....

Two years ago, the property that was the site of the Makee Plantation was sold by Amfac/JMB to Kealia Plantation Inc.

It is being developed into lots for multi-million-dollar homes....

IOLANI - the Royal Hawk

Monday, May 22, 2023

The Legitimate Government in Hawaii Series: Greg Wongham (dec.) Whistleblower's Research

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