The Greatest Corruption Case in Hawaii History. The host for this show is Jay Fidell. The guest is Alexander Silvert.

Attorney and author Alexander Silvert helps us understand his new book, The Mailbox Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Greatest Corruption Case in Hawaii History.

When Honolulu police chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine, the city’s deputy prosecutor, reported their mailbox stolen to frame a family member, it was only the beginning of an elaborate conspiracy—and a corruption case that soon became the most notorious in Hawai‘i history. Riveting and meticulously told by the federal defender who learned the story from the inside, The Mailbox Conspiracy is a fascinating study in the corruption of power and the abuse of public office.

Infamous for each new stranger-than-fiction revelation, the so-called “Kealoha mailbox trial” unearthed a chain of bumbling coverups, multiple instances of financial fraud stretching back a decade, and an alleged family drug trafficking enterprise—all served up with a generous helping of arrogance on the part of Louis and Katherine Kealoha.

A tenacious defense attorney with decades of experience, author Alexander Silvert led the team of investigators who painstakingly unearthed evidence to prove Gerard Puana’s innocence. Their seven-year effort turned the tables on the Kealohas, resulting in the couple’s federal prosecution, and the ramifications—and legal wrangling—of the case continue today.

“The Louis and Katherine Kealoha corruption saga is the most infamous in Island history, as Chief Kealoha and the Honolulu Police Department worked in concert to dupe the US Attorney’s office into prosecuting an innocent man. A scary, engrossing story. Alexander Silvert is as skilled an author as he is a lawyer.” —Ben Cayetano, Governor of Hawai‘i, 1994–2002

“The Mailbox Conspiracy is a crisply narrated study in abuse of power at the highest levels of Hawai‘i law enforcement. Silvert doesn’t hold back in vividly describing this sordid conspiracy by corrupt and recalcitrant authority figures.

His description of today’s police departments, prosecutor’s offices and courts, warts and all, is an easy-to-follow must-read for law students and those who love page-turning courtroom drama.” —Doug Chin, Attorney General of Hawai‘i, 2015–2018

Alexander Silvert was raised in New York City and Vermont. A graduate of UCLA and Boston College Law School, he worked as a state and federal public defender in Philadelphia before moving to Honolulu in 1989. He served as the first assistant federal public defender from 1992 to his retirement in October 2020 and was named Federal Defender of the Year in 2000 by the National Association of Federal Defenders.

During his tenure he handled numerous high-publicity cases, including representing two defendants in potential federal death penalty cases. Silvert wrote The Mailbox Conspiracy based on his personal involvement in the Louis and Katherine Kealoha case from 2013 to 2020. He currently provides legal consultation services to defense attorneys in federal criminal cases.

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He has been called one of the most wanted men on the planet, the shadowy mastermind of the now infamous $4.5bn 1MDB fraud that robbed Malaysia of its sovereign wealth – and brought down a prime minister.

But Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, as he is known, has so far managed to elude Malaysian and international law enforcement agencies – somehow staying out of the public eye and keeping one step ahead of Interpol red notices for his arrest.

Yet, as this exclusive Al Jazeera investigation reveals, even while on the run, Jho Low has been attempting to negotiate yet another behind-the-scenes deal – this time to stay out of jail.

With new information on the role played by Jho Low and his associates in the 1MDB scandal, and previously unheard recordings of the man himself, this eye-opening film sheds new light on what has been dubbed “the world’s biggest heist”.

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#1MDB #JhoLow #Investigation

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In a free market, some individuals will engage in corrupt business activities. One argument for government regulation holds that it reduces the amount of business corruption. Opponents of government regulation respond that free markets have the internal resources to control most business corruption—and that government regulation itself leads to corruption, both more and worse. How do we evaluate these competing arguments about whether corruption is worse in free-market or government-regulation systems? In this lecture, Stephen Hicks discusses both sides’ arguments and bring to bear upon them the empirical work of this generation’s social science.

ABOUT STEPHEN HICKS:
Stephen Hicks is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford College and executive director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship there. His works include “Ayn Rand and Contemporary Business Ethics,” “Nietzsche and the Nazis,” and Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.

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