HONOLULU A former Honolulu police sergeant says an ex-prosecutor brought a drunken-driving case against him because she had a vendetta against him, his defense attorney said in court documents.
HONOLULU — A former Honolulu police sergeant says an ex-prosecutor brought a drunken-driving case against him because she had a vendetta against him, his defense attorney said in court documents.
Albert Lee was a sergeant when he allegedly crashed into a Hawaiian Electric vault in 2016 while off duty and driving drunk. He then allegedly lied that he wasn’t behind the wheel.
Lee’s defense attorney, Megan Kau, said in a court filing last week she is seeking documents from the prosecuting attorney’s office to prove former high-ranking deputy prosecutor Katherine Kealoha retaliated against him for arresting a nightclub owner despite her instructions to leave him alone.
A federal indictment on corruption-related charges accuses Kealoha and her retired police chief husband of using police resources and abusing their power to frame a relative in an attempt to stop him from uncovering their financial schemes.
They are due to go to trial next month.
Lee initially wasn’t suspected of a crime and was released without any charges. A few days later, the responding officers changed their reports and Kealoha started an investigation, Kau’s filing said, resulting in charges a year later against Lee for driving under the influence and false reporting to law enforcement.
“Now that he has been charged, he should be given every opportunity to prove the major corruption between Katherine Kealoha, a high ranking supervisor at the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office with a vendetta against Sgt. Lee, and Louis Kealoha, her husband and (at the relevant time) the chief of police for the Honolulu Police Department,” Kau wrote in the document.
