HONOLULU (Island News) — “It’s a little hard to speculate where this will go,” said Alexander Silvert, a retired federal public defender.
But what you can anticipate is a long legal process.
“I expect that this is going to drag on for at least two or three years,” said Silvert.
That process will now move forward after the recent indictments handed out in court to five people, including Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke.
“The bribery charges are felony seat charges under Hawaii law that carry up to 10 years in prison. The other charges are felony C charges, which carry up to five years in prison. So these are all felony charges, and they’re very serious charges moving forward,” said Silvert.
But there are many steps that need to take place first.
“The first thing that has to happen is all the defendants have to appear to post bail, and then there’ll be an arraignment where there’ll be motion dates set, discovery dates and trial dates set,” said Silvert.
After arraignment, prosecutors must turn over evidence to the defense in what’s known as discovery.
However, the process could take longer as prosecutors said one defendant is believed to be living in the Philippines.
“The government’s going to have to move to have him extradited, so that’s going to delay the process even longer,” said Silvert.
He continued, “The United States will use its resources, intelligence resources, to locate the person. They will clearly ask the Philippines for their assistance in locating the person.”
And while they work on that, other decisions will be made.
“I’m sure every defendant is going to file a motion to break up the conspiracy to say that it wasn’t a joint conspiracy. That at best these were individual conspiracies,” said Silvert.
He continued, “If the case goes to trial either separately or as a group, if anyone’s convicted, they’ll be sentenced based upon a number of factors. But one of the factors the court will consider is their role in the overall conspiracy.”
Experts said it’s important to remember these are still just allegations.
“This is a complex conspiracy case,” said Silvert.
And because of that, there are many different possibilities.
“They could all end up going to trial. No one could end up going to trial, and sometimes just one person ends up going to trial. So we’ll see over the coming months and years how this is going to play out,” said Silvert.
Experts said it’s way too early to speculate how this is gonna play out.
And although this is a big first step in the legal case, there is still a long road ahead.
