Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said Monday she may be the lawmaker at the center of a story involving a legislator who allegedly accepted money in 2022.
She said she did nothing wrong and did not take $35,000 in cash in a paper bag.
The Hawaiʻi attorney general is investigating an “influential lawmaker” mentioned in a past federal political corruption case who allegedly accepted the money in a paper bag.
Luke told Hawaii News Now and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that she may be the lawmaker in question — although she denied any wrongdoing and said she did not take cash in a paper bag.
Luke said she accepted a total of $10,000 in political donations in the form of two checks from two people introduced to her by former House Rep. Ty Cullen in January 2022. At the time, Luke was the head of the House Finance Committee and about to run for lieutenant governor.
Cullen pleaded guilty to taking bribes from 2014 to 2021, and later became an FBI informant. That case involved local businessman Milton Choy.
Luke said that after Cullen and former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English pleaded guilty in that case, she and her campaign identified slightly more than $25,000 in donations from Choy, his relatives, and colleagues.
She then returned that money to the Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission in February 2022.
The lieutenant governor said that in March 2022, she returned the donated checks from the people introduced to her by Cullen, two months after she received them.
On Saturday, Luke amended her campaign spending reports dating back to January 2022 to add in the two $5,000 contributions from registered lobbyist Tobi Solidum and his daughter Kristen Pae on Jan. 21, 2022. However, her original campaign spending report she submitted in 2022 reflected her return of their contributions on March 25, 2022.
Solidum and Pae have both been part of Geopolicy Development Group LLC, which was registered with the Hawaiʻi Ethics Commission as a lobbying group. Pae joined the management of the group in 2021.
Solidum was a registered lobbyist between 2019 and 2022, both on behalf of two separate dialysis care companies: Fresenius Medical Care North America and U.S. Renal Care.
In 2021 and 2022 Solidum contributed $20,500 to state and local campaigns, including to Luke, Gov. Josh Green, Senate President Ron Kouchi, Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, Sen. Lynn DeCoite and Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
According to campaign reports, Luke was the only lawmaker who returned Solidum's full contribution. Kouchi’s campaign had to give $500 in excess contributions back to Solidum because he went over the campaign spending limit of $4,000.
Luke told the Star-Advertiser that her campaign did not initially report receiving those checks because of a “clerical oversight.”
Gov. Josh Green said in a statement, “This situation is deeply concerning and accountability is essential — no one gets a free pass. We are in an active investigation led by my Attorney General, and I want to see all of the facts released to the people of our state as expeditiously as possible. This needs to be resolved for the good of our public trust.”
In Hawaiʻi, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately — unlike the U.S. president and vice president.
HPR has scheduled an interview with Luke for later today and will update this story with any further developments.
