Stant gets 10 years in prison for bribery scheme | News, Sports, Jobs

Former Maui County official Stewart Olani Stant walks into U.S. District Court in Honolulu on Sept. 19, when he pleaded guilty to taking about $2 million in bribes in exchange for helping an Oahu wastewater business secure more than $19 million in county contracts. Stant was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison. AP photo

Stewart Stant, the former director of the Maui County Environmental Management Department, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Wednesday for accepting nearly $2 million in bribes — which he spent on dining, hostess bars and luxury hotels — in exchange for directing almost $20 million in county contracts to an Oahu-based wastewater systems company.

Stant’s Wailuku-based attorney Cary Virtue in an email after the sentencing that Stant will also have to serve three years of supervised release. Virtue did not answer a question about what he thought of Stant’s sentence, but said that Stant in court apologized and said he regretted his actions.

Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ordered Stant to turn himself in at 2 p.m. April 6.

In what assistant U.S. attorneys describe as the largest single known case of bribery prosecuted in the Hawaii District, Stant received $733,176 in bank deposits and $644,570 in cash deposits from Milton Choy, the head of Oahu-based wastewater services company H2O Process Systems. He also accepted $424,987 in travel benefits that included airfare and hotels. Las Vegas gaming records also document that Stant cashed in more than $183,000 in gambling chips that he did not purchase, according to federal prosecutors.

In exchange for the financial benefits he received from October 2012 to December 2018, Stant “regularly guided and arranged the awarding” of at least 56 Department of Environmental Management contracts to H2O worth about $19.3 million, according to Stant’s plea agreement.

Stewart Stant, then-director of the Maui County Department of Environmental Management, is seen in his office during an interview with The Maui News in 2017. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Stant, who pleaded guilty to honest wire services fraud in September, will need to pay $1.9 million in restitution.

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, which was present at the sentencing on Oahu, Stant apologized for his actions.

“I regret what I did and I am truly sorry for what happened. What has happened does not define who I am. I am not the person that did this yet I will take all responsibility … and will make restitution for this for the rest of my life,” Stant said, according to the Star-Advertiser.

Watson said Stant’s sentence is meant to send a message to public officials that abusing their powers will not be tolerated, adding that “No one embraces a career in public service because they believe that’s the path to living like Jeff Bezos,” Honolulu Civil Beat reported.

“You were living like a king. I hope you enjoyed those years living that lifestyle,” Watson told Stant, according to Civil Beat.

Stant served as the manager of the county’s Solid Waste Division from January 2009 to December 2015, when he was then appointed by then-Mayor Alan Arakawa to serve as the director of the Department of Environmental Management, a position he held until December 2018.

Between Aug. 17, 2015 and Jan. 7, 2019, H2O received 31 percent of all sole source contracts awarded by the county. The company deposited about $20.5 million in total proceeds from the county from January 2014 to December 2017.

With the funds he received from Choy, “Stant lived quite well, spending $187,000 on dining, $60,000 on hostess bars, $54,000 on luxury hotel stays, taking out $165,000 in cash withdraws and spending thousands on airfare, jewelry and other items,” according to a sentencing memorandum Friday.

“The long running and brazen nature of Stant’s betrayal of the public trust is, in our view, another aggravating factor the Court must consider,” prosecutors said in the memo.

Ahead of Stant’s sentencing, more than 40 people, some well known and respected in the community, wrote letters to the court in support of Stant.

This included former Mayor Arakawa, who said he has known Stant for close to 30 years. Arakawa described Stant as hard working and an intelligent county employee who was an Eagle Scout and a “dedicated son and father.”

“He has gone over and beyond to care for his parents, his daughters and his siblings,” Arakawa wrote.

Arakawa added that Stant “has always been driven to improve his economic position” and tried numerous business enterprises, including starting a night club in Haiku, and was involved in ventures such as telecommunications seller ACN, founded as American Communications Network.

“I mention this because I trusted him enough to loan him several thousand dollars so he could set up these various enterprises. He always repaid me,” Arakawa wrote.

Arakawa said Wednesday evening that he has known Stant as a “straight shooter” and that what he expressed in his letter reflected his personal dealings with Stant.

“I was surprised with the charges,” Arakawa told The Maui News.

When asked if he knew what Stant had been doing, Arakawa said, “I was never involved in the department level’s doing so much,” in regards to contracts.

Arakawa said he only met Choy once for five minutes at a party. He said he never questioned Stant’s trips to Vegas or his spending, as Stant had his other businesses besides the county job that he was doing well in.

Retired 2nd Circuit Chief Judge Boyd Mossman, who now resides in Utah, also wrote a letter on behalf of Stant, but noted that he has not had personal contact with Stant for more than 10 years.

But he remembers Stant in his younger years on Maui at church and with the Boy Scouts, where he was never a problem and was reliable and trustworthy.

Mossman said Stant’s parents “have been excellent examples of service, faith, and kindness in our community.”

He added that Stant “will need to be held accountable for his bad choices in life, but believe he will be able to recover from the situation he finds himself in, learn from his mistakes, and acknowledge his responsibility.”

Civil Beat reported Watson saying he wasn’t moved by the dozens of letters of support for Stant.

Assistant U.S. attorneys handling the case could not be reach for comment Wednesday, but U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii Clare Connors said in a news release: “Mr. Stant was a public official given the discretion to use government funds for public contracts with the public’s expectation that he would do so honestly. By directing public contracts to a specific company in exchange for money and other financial benefits, all in violation of federal law and state ethics requirements, he failed to discharge that responsibility faithfully.”

“This office is committed to prosecuting public officials who criminally abuse their official positions to serve their personal interests and thereby deprive the people of Hawaii of honest services,” she added.

The FBI conducted the investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ken Sorenson, Micah Smith and Michael Albanese handled the prosecution.

“Mr. Stant was a public servant entrusted by the taxpayers to act in their best interest,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Steven Merrill. “Instead, he violated that trust by accepting nearly $2 million in bribes. Today’s sentence sends a clear message: the FBI will work tirelessly to investigate public corruption and bring those responsible to justice.”

Businessman Choy was also at the center of a bribery scheme that involved former longtime Maui state Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English, who pleaded guilty to taking more than $18,000 in bribes, including $10,000 in cash to delay cesspool bills and $1,805 for hotel rooms in Las Vegas. He was sentenced in July to more than three years in federal prison.

Former Oahu state lawmaker Ty Cullen, who also pleaded guilty to taking bribes from Choy, is awaiting sentencing.

Choy is also awaiting sentencing.

An April sentencing date is scheduled for retired county maintenance mechanic supervisor Wilfred Tamayo Savella, who pleaded guilty in December to accepting bribes in the same long-running scheme involving Stant, who was his former boss at the Department of Environmental Management.

Savella, who was 71 years old at the time of his plea date, took bribes valued at more than $40,000 from Choy from about 2013 to 2017, according to court documents.

He is charged with “acceptance of bribes in connection with the transactions of a local government receiving federal funds.”

Savella’s attorney has said his client “was clearly a minor player in the overall scheme,” but takes responsibility for what he did.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

Former Maui County official Stewart Olani Stant walks into U.S. District Court in Honolulu on Sept. 19, when he pleaded guilty to taking about $2 million in bribes in exchange for helping an Oahu wastewater business secure more than $19 million in county contracts. Stant was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison. AP photo Stewart Stant, then-director of the Maui County Department of Environmental Management, is seen in his office during an interview with The Maui News in 2017. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

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