HONOLULU (AP) — A U.S. judge in Alaska will preside over an upcoming bribery trial in Hawaii against Honolulu’s former top prosecutor after a judge suddenly recused himself.
U.S. Senior District Judge Timothy Burgess will temporarily serve as a judge in the Hawaii district in the case against former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro, according to an order filed Thursday.
On Wednesday morning, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright in Hawaii unexpectedly, and without explanation, recused himself from the case.
He presided over the case since a U.S. grand jury indicted Kaneshiro and five others in 2022, alleging that employees of an engineering and architectural firm bribed Kaneshiro with campaign donations in exchange for his prosecution of a former company employee.
All six have pleaded not guilty.
The indictment alleges that Mitsunaga &Associates employees and an attorney contributed more than $45,000 to Kaneshiro’s reelection campaigns between October 2012 and October 2016.
The former employee targeted with prosecution had been a project architect at Mitsunaga &Associates for 15 years when she was fired without explanation on the same day she expressed disagreement with claims the CEO made against her, court documents say.
Kaneshiro’s office prosecuted the architect, whom court documents identify only as L.J.M., but a judge dismissed the case in 2017 for lack of probable cause.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin next month.