HONOLULU — A former city attorney in Hawaii got a state government job using correspondence from a fictional notary public, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors Monday linked Katherine Kealoha to a nonexistent notary public named "Alison Lee Wong," The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday.
The false name was on a letter to state officials supporting Kealoha's bid to become director of the state Office of Environmental Quality Control in 2008, prosecutors said.
Authorities charged Kealoha, a former Honolulu deputy prosecutor, and her husband, retired Honolulu Police chief Louis Kealoha, with attempting to frame a man for theft to keep him from revealing fraud that financed their lavish lifestyle.
Katherine Kealoha also sent emails to the fake notary in 2011 to create the appearance she was closing trust accounts for two people while concealing the misappropriation of nearly $150,000, prosecutors said.
Kealoha was appointed director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control and two years later returned to the Honolulu prosecutor's office.
No notary public named Alison Lee Wong, or various iterations of those names, existed in Hawaii, according to testimony Monday by Shari Wong, a deputy state attorney general who oversees all of the state's notaries public.
An online order for a "Hawaii Notary Seal Metal Embosser" was placed for Alison Lee Wong in May 2008 and shipped to the address of the Office of Environmental Quality Control, according to Kal Tabbara, president of the American Association of Notaries Inc.
Monday was the eighth day of the conspiracy trial of the Kealohas and three former and current police officers.
