Jury finds Honolulu's former top prosecutor and 5 others not guilty in a federal bribery case

HONOLULU (AP) — A jury found Honolulu’s former top prosecutor not guilty Friday in a bribery case that alleged employees of an engineering and architectural firm bribed him with campaign donations in exchange for his prosecution of a former company employee.

A U.S. grand jury indicted former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro and five others in 2022. The indictment alleged that Mitsunaga & Associates employees and an attorney contributed more than $45,000 to Kaneshiro’s reelection campaigns between October 2012 and October 2016.

The firm’s owner, Dennis Mitsunaga, who was ordered jailed during the trial because of witness tampering allegations, was also found not guilty after nearly two days of deliberation, Hawaii News Now reported.

He was ordered released after the verdict.

The jury also found the other four defendants not guilty.