Hawaii News Shorts
Details to be worked out for who pays for ex-chief’s lawyer
HONOLULU — Retired Honolulu police chief Louis Kealoha says he wants to stick with the federal taxpayer-funded lawyer who’s been representing him on corruption-related charges.
Kealoha swore in court Friday he’s satisfied with his attorney, Rustam Barbee. Kealoha and his wife, former prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, received taxpayer-funded attorneys when they said they couldn’t afford to hire lawyers.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright called for the hearing after learning the Honolulu Police Commission approved a request for a city-funded attorney to represent the ex-chief in a case focusing on allegations the Kealohas used police resources to frame a relative.
It’s unclear whether the commission’s decision allows the city to reimburse the federal government for Barbee’s work. Seabright says he won’t allow the city to decide who represents Kealoha.
Hawaii ukulele makers celebrate Portuguese roots
Sailor who died at Pearl Harbor accounted for
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A sailor from Massachusetts, who died when the Japanese sank the USS Oklahoma during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, was identified, military officials announced Friday.
Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class Roman W. Sadlowski, 21, of Pittsfield, was accounted for in December following a lengthy process that included advanced DNA and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial and material evidence, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a statement.
The battleship USS Oklahoma was struck by multiple torpedoes during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack and quickly capsized. A total of 429 crewmen on the battleship were killed.
The remains of the crewmen were recovered during the next few years and buried at two cemeteries in Hawaii.
After World War II, efforts were made to identify the remains, but scientists were only able to confirm the identities of 35.
The rest were buried at the Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. Those remains were exhumed in 2015 for additional analysis using modern scientific techniques.
To date, 203 of those sets of remains from the USS Oklahoma have been identified, according to Chuck Prichard, a spokesman for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
