Former Democrat Lawmaker Gets Prison Time Over Cesspool Bribes

After admitting to accepting bribes to sway policy, a former Democratic state member in Hawaii was given the death penalty of two years in prison.

In exchange for lobbying against cesspools on behalf of a Honolulu business, former Hawaiian state representative Ty Cullen accepted cash and betting chips. Because U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway claimed that he had assisted authorities looking into the case, prosecutors recommended a minimum federal prison sentence of$ 25,000.

” This was a serious betrayal of the public’s’s trust on your part. It appears to have been driven by greed, and it lasted for a while ,” Mollway said to Cullen. ” I am really worried that this was not a fleeting error in judgment.”

Cullen expressed regret for his involvement in the corruption plan. He said,” I want to say I’m’m sorry to my family who stood by me, my friends, and my constituents, as well as to the people of Hawaii.” ” I’ll’ll keep trying to right the wrongs I’ve’ve done.” and make sure it doesn’t happen once again.

Cullen admitted to stealing$ 30,000 from businessman Milton Choy, who works in water management and whose company, according to court documents, would have benefited from the closure of cesspools— tanks where waste was stored at many homes when the sewage infrastructure on the island had not yet been fully developed.

The disgraced senator, according to associate U.S. attorney Kenneth Sorenson, assisted with the investigation. According to Sorenson,” We did experience significant cooperation from Mr. Cullen that led to the assistance of an analysis that we are conducting.”

For a related bribery-related violence, fellow Democrat and previous Hawaii Senate Majority Leader Jamie Kalani English was given the 40-month sentence.

In February 2022, English, who represented east Maui and the islands of Molokai, admitted to engaging in honest wire services fraud and accepting bribes totaling$ 18,000 from a local business owner in exchange for” shaping legislation” that would help an organization involved in the publicly funded conversion of cesspools.

“[English] peddled the power and influence of his position as a Hawaii State Senator and Majority Leader to enrich himself and betray the trust bestowed upon him by those he was elected to serve,” U.S. prosecutors said in a memo.

Hawaii is really working to make the more than 80,000 existing cesspools and develop a more efficient sewage system despite having outlawed the construction of new ones in 2016.