Seven years ago, civil attorney Kevin Sumida took to the witness stand during a high-profile criminal trial and was accused of lying to a federal prosecutor.
Now, all this time later, he could face disciplinary action from the state agency charged with investigating attorney misconduct.
Last week, Sumida appeared before the Disciplinary Board of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court to defend himself from allegations that he knowingly lied under oath while testifying in the 2019 trial. It centered on charges that Katherine Kealoha, a former city prosecutor, and her husband, Louis — Honolulu’s former police chief — had framed a family member for the theft of their mailbox.
The motive for the frame job, according to prosecutors, was a lawsuit Katherine Kealoha’s uncle had filed against her accusing her of bilking him and his elderly mother out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sumida was Kealoha’s attorney in that previous case, and prosecutors had presented evidence showing that Kealoha relied on forged documents to help perpetuate the scheme and win the lawsuit…