Two former Hawai?i County police officers have been indicted on a variety of charges involving cases from drugs to gambling.
HPR initially broke part of this story in March 2018, when Hawai?i County Police Chief Paul Ferreira confirmed that drugs were missing from police evidence and that a retired police sergeant was a suspect.
Hawai?i County Police Chief Paul Ferreira says the investigation began with cocaine and hashish missing from police custody.
“There was a case involving evidence missing from the Hilo Police station, which involved evidence recovered by one of our narcotics officers. Evidence was being taken out for training and it was discovered there was a discrepancy in the weights, which caused us to do an audit and turn up other cases which involved missing evidence from this same narcotics officer.”
Ferreira says the Hawai?i County prosecutor turned the case over to the Attorney General’s office because of a potential conflict of interest. But the case was eventually returned to the Hawai?i County prosecutor.
“The prosecutor’s office continued looking at the case and another case involving gambling, which brought in the second officer. There were some allegations of whether confidential information was released during a search warrant.”
Retired Hawai?i County Police Sergeant Brian Miller is charged with 10 counts ranging from theft to first degree promoting a dangerous drug, hindering prosecution, and more.
Retired Hawai?i County Police Captain Chadwick Fukui is charged with four counts including criminal conspiracy, hindering prosecution, and tampering with physical evidence. Four civilians were also indicted: Lance Yamada, Stacey Yamada, David Colon, and Ivar Kaluhikaua. Three have previously been arrested for gambling.
After retiring from the Hawai?i County Police, Captain Fukui worked for the Hawaii County Prosecutor’s Office and for the State Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
Hawai?i County Deputy Prosecutor Sherry Lawson says the next step is issuing warrants and making arrests.
