Friends for Justice learned today that 5 employees in the Hawaii county prosecutors office resigned on or around January 4th.
East Hawaii has 24 prosecutors.
Information is scarce, and no one is talking, but we have reason to believe the majority of resignations may have all been out of the East Hawaii office in Hilo. This corresponds with Hawaii county prosecutor Jay Kimura’s brother Lloyd Kimura pleading guilty to nine counts of bank and mail fraud and theft in a 24 year ponzi scheme involving 50 clients and the theft of over 20 million dollars. That story like this one got no coverage in the local Hawaii county newspapers.
Friends for Justice was in court in Hilo Thursday January 6th in Judge Hara’s court supporting Reverend Nancy Harris’s religious marijuana case. The prosecutor in that case Rick Damerville made reference to an event in the prosecutors office on January 4th in response to the judges inquiry about scheduling a trial date for Reverend Harris. The defendant in the case made inquiries, because her trial was delayed until July and was told Damerville was staying because of an unexpected mass exodus from Jay Kimura’s office. The prosecutor in Rev. Harris’s case (Damerville) had been scheduled to retire in the near future but said he would be staying on indefinitely.
The widespread corruption in Hawaii county government and Mr. Kimura’s refusal to pursue those cases as well as the dead ends in other high profile murder cases like Peter “boy” Kema Jr, and Clayton Larry Alani, may have been too much for some of the employees in the office.