A public accountability letter by Ekewaka Lono.
Vincent Kanemoto stood before the jury and asked them to imagine a gun that was not in evidence. I watched him make a pistol with his hands and direct it toward the jurors. I remember his closing words, in substance:
“There was no gun in this trial. But what if there was? Convict him. I rest my case.”
I am reporting what I heard and saw. The quoted wording is my recollection, not a quotation certified against a transcript. The gesture is my firsthand observation.
The episode belongs to a longer history. In November 2015, an investigator invoked my childhood associations in New Jersey and told me he was going to give me a “colonoscopy.” I understood that statement as a threat. Young Kwak then gave the grand jury a threat account that I say was false. At trial, Kanemoto put an imaginary gun into his closing argument.
My inference is that the closing argument exploited the dangerous-mafia-associate frame introduced during the investigator encounter. That is the connection I am drawing, and the reasons for it belong in public. It is an inference about the use of a narrative, not a claim that I witnessed an agreement among the participants.
The trial did not result in a conviction. The courtroom conduct remains independently accountable.
November 2015: The Investigator Encounter
The underlying encounter was at a state tax office. My account is that tax official Young Kwak demanded payment inside a small booth, presented an inflated amount, and told me that leaving would mean dealing with someone who “wasn’t nice.” I dispute the threat he later attributed to me. My statement about exposing what was happening—words to the effect of blowing the whole thing up and telling everyone—was about disclosure, not a threat to attack him.
Later that November, I met in person with James Yuen and another man identified to me as a New Jersey State Police organized-crime task-force investigator. They attempted to interrogate me. The New Jersey investigator knew of my childhood friends and invoked their organized-crime associations during that encounter. He told me he was going to give me a “colonoscopy.”
I understood that as a threat of invasive investigation and humiliation: the state would use my history against me. The word and its delivery are part of my firsthand account. My interpretation of its purpose is identified here as my interpretation.
Knowing people as a child does not establish participation in their offenses or supply evidence against me in an unrelated matter.
The investigator encounter matters because it introduced organized-crime imagery before Kanemoto used gun imagery in front of the jury. The agency records should identify the visiting investigator, his assignment, the purpose of his participation, the notes or recording of the interview, and what information was passed to the Hawaiʻi authorities.
Kwak’s Grand-Jury Account
Young Kwak told the grand jury I threatened him. That statement is false. His account followed the November 2015 investigator encounter and supplied the accusation used to obtain an indictment.
I heard the accusation in the grand-jury recording: Kwak reported that I threatened him. I absolutely did not. I was present for the tax-office interaction and know what I said. I was not present in the grand-jury room; the recording is how I learned what he told the grand jury. The recording and a transcript should be made available for comparison with the underlying encounter. They have not been independently authenticated or published with this letter.
I strongly suspect Kwak knew the account was false. I also suspect Yuen and the New Jersey investigator influenced it. Those are my inferences about knowledge and how the account developed, not conversations or instructions I independently witnessed. Interview notes, communications, witness-preparation materials, and the testimony are the records that can test them.
My criticism is that the accusation moved through the grand-jury process while my account of the underlying exchange and surrounding pressure remained outside the public frame. The testimony and exhibits should establish precisely what each witness said and what evidence the grand jury received.
The accountability issue begins before closing argument. Who introduced the organized-crime frame? What did Kwak actually testify to? What information reached the prosecution? And what evidentiary basis, if any, connected childhood associations to the encounter the state was presenting?
The Imaginary Gun
At trial, I watched Kanemoto form a mock pistol with his hands and point it toward the jury while asking the jurors to imagine a gun that was not in the case.
My objection is to the substitution: a visual suggestion of armed danger took the place of evidence. The prosecutor had the authority of the state behind the performance. Childhood proximity to people later convicted of crimes was already part of the investigative background I had encountered. A gun gesture gave that background a visual form.
My inference: Kanemoto’s stunt carried the earlier dangerous-associate framing into the courtroom. I draw that inference from the investigator’s references, the invasive-investigation threat, the accusation built around the tax-office encounter, and the later invocation of a nonexistent gun. I do not claim firsthand knowledge of Kanemoto’s private thinking or of a coordinated instruction to use the gesture.
The closing argument is independently accountable. A prosecutor does not need to share an investigator’s motive for an extra-record appeal to fear to warrant scrutiny.
The Judge Called Chambers
I remember the presiding judge appearing openly angry immediately after the episode, calling a recess, and bringing the matter into chambers. I saw no visible corrective action before the jury deliberated.
The judge’s reaction is part of my recollection. The public record should establish the recess, any objection, the conference reference, and what was said afterward. A chambers discussion does not answer the public question unless the response is recoverable: was the gesture described, was the jury instructed about the gun argument, and was any remedy recorded?
A transcript records words better than gestures. That limitation is central to this account. A transcript containing the gun language would establish the language, not automatically prove the hand movement. The visual episode requires any available recording, contemporaneous notes, or accounts from people who were present.
What My Trial Counsel Did
My concern about the trial does not end with the prosecutor’s closing argument. It also concerns the representation I received from my privately retained trial counsel.
I remember counsel’s opening as presenting me in a way that made me appear guilty rather than presenting the defense I believed the evidence and surrounding events supported. That is my firsthand recollection and assessment of the opening. The opening transcript should establish exactly what counsel told the jury and how he framed me and the case.
I also wanted to testify. I wanted the jury to hear about the death threat I had received — “Stay away from [name withheld]” and “or you will get whacked” — and the related context I believed mattered to understanding what had happened. Counsel advised me not to testify, and I did not. His file and notes should establish what advice he gave me, what risks and benefits were explained, and how my decision about testifying was handled.
After Kanemoto’s mock-pistol closing and the judge’s reaction, I saw no meaningful remedy for what had occurred. My allegation is that trial counsel failed to preserve the issue. The transcript, minute entries, filings, and counsel’s file should establish whether he objected, requested a curative instruction, sought a mistrial, or otherwise preserved the episode for review, including anything discussed in chambers that I could not observe.
During jury deliberations, counsel continued pressing me to accept a plea. I repeatedly told him that I would not accept one and asked that the plea discussions stop. I remember him continuing to press the issue while the jury was deciding the case.
These are separate allegations about the representation I received: how counsel framed me to the jury, how my desire to testify was handled, what he did after the mock-pistol closing, and whether he respected my repeated instructions concerning a plea during deliberations. They are my recollections and assessments, not disciplinary findings. The opening and closing transcripts, minute entries, any recorded chambers references, plea communications, and counsel’s own file can test them.
The Diagrams and the Booth
I also allege that the prosecution’s diagrams misrepresented the confinement and geometry of the tax-office booth. Space mattered to the account: where people stood, the available exit, and how the exchange unfolded.
The diagrams are a separate evidentiary issue. The admitted exhibits, their foundation testimony, and photographs or measurements should be compared directly. My allegation concerns the representation of the physical encounter, not whether every simplified diagram must be drawn to scale.
Together, these questions concern what the state put before the jury: the accusation, the physical setting, and an image of danger that was not an admitted weapon.
The Threat I Had Reported
During the pretrial period, I received and reported a conditional death threat from Gene and Rita Hartmann: “Stay away from [name withheld]” and “or you will get whacked.” I reported it to assigned counsel Audrey L.E. Stanley. My account of her response and the later leave-Hawaiʻi communication is published in The Threat Report.
The contrast matters to my account of the prosecution: the danger I reported remained outside the story presented about me, while an imaginary gun entered the state’s closing argument. This is my criticism of the framing. The reported threat does not by itself prove Kanemoto knew of it or acted at anyone’s direction.
The earlier housing and private-information sequence is set out in Before the Tax Office. It explains the history I was carrying into the state encounter; it is not documentary proof of the courtroom gesture or of the separate Wilson Loo matter.
A Later Denial
In a later encounter at Glazer’s, which I place in summer 2019, I asked Kanemoto why he had made the mock-pistol argument. He denied doing it. That exchange is another firsthand report, not a recorded admission or an independent finding.
His denial makes preservation more important. The issue cannot be settled by treating the visual portion as nonexistent merely because the transcript may not describe it.
The Public Standard
Hawaiʻi’s professional-conduct rules address trial advocacy unsupported by admissible evidence in Rule 3.4(g), and knowingly offering false evidence in Rule 3.3(a)(4). The first bears on the gun argument; the second requires proof of knowledge as well as falsity and is relevant to scrutiny of the demonstratives. These are standards for assessing the conduct, not disciplinary findings.
The record request is concrete:
| Event | Evidence needed |
|---|---|
| November 2015 investigator encounter | Interview notes or recording; visiting-investigator identity and assignment; interagency communications |
| Kwak’s reported false statement | Grand-jury testimony; interview and witness-preparation records; underlying tax-office records |
| Closing argument | Full closing transcript; minute entries; any courtroom recording; contemporaneous witness accounts |
| Judge’s response | Recess and chambers references; instructions; recorded remedial discussion |
| Trial counsel’s opening and handling of my wish to testify | Opening transcript; counsel notes, advice, and client communications |
| Trial counsel’s response to the mock-pistol closing | Objections, minute entries, recorded chambers references, curative or mistrial filings, and counsel notes |
| Plea pressure during deliberations | Plea communications and terms; counsel notes and client instructions; any recorded discussion |
| Booth diagrams | Admitted exhibits; foundation testimony; photographs or measurements |
The transcript, grand-jury record, and agency files have not been independently authenticated and published with this letter. My reported encounters, my allegation against Kwak, and my inference about the narrative connection are different kinds of evidence. They should remain distinguishable when quoted or summarized.
Publication Status and Response
This public accountability letter supersedes the narrower draft complaint as my published account. The draft has not been submitted to the Hawaiʻi Office of Disciplinary Counsel. No disciplinary authority finding is being reported.
Kanemoto, Kwak, Yuen, the relevant agencies, and any participant with records may respond through the site’s Corrections Policy. No response obtained specifically for this letter is represented here. A response, transcript, or document that changes the account should appear alongside it.
The outcome did not produce a conviction. The public question remains what the state said, what it showed the jury, and how an encounter with a tax official became an occasion to cast a person through childhood associations and an imaginary weapon.
The header image is an editorial illustration, not documentary evidence. Image credit: generated editorial artwork for Oahu Underground / GTCode, October 1, 2026.