LIHU‘E — At face value, it looked like an open-and-shut theft case with the perpetrator caught on a grocery store surveillance camera. That is until county Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho through Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lauren McDowell announced she may seek
LIHU‘E — At face value, it looked like an open-and-shut theft case with the perpetrator caught on a grocery store surveillance camera.
That is until county Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho through Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lauren McDowell announced she may seek enhanced sentencing against Dennis Louis Rego Jr. because of his petty misdemeanor theft conviction in 1987 in Honolulu.
This prompted Rego’s defense attorney, Mark Zenger, to break out the heavy artillery.
In a response to the prosecutors’ answer to Zenger’s motion to disqualify the prosecutor for a conflict of interest, Zenger and Rego in court papers say Rego and Iseri-Carvalho were boyfriend-girlfriend for nearly a decade, that Rego helped put Iseri-Carvalho through undergraduate and law school, and that Iseri-Carvalho prodded Rego into the 1987 theft of cosmetics from a Honolulu department store.
“Shaylene was directly involved in the criminal activity that led (to) DJ’s (Rego’s) arrest and conviction in the 1987 Honolulu petty misdemeanor theft case,” and “has been covering up her involvement in that case ever since,” Zenger wrote in a document filed in 5th Circuit Judge Randal Valenciano’s court.
Rego states in court documents that he broke up with Iseri-Carvalho when he learned of an affair she was having with a partner at a Honolulu law firm where she worked after graduating from law school.
Though prohibited from talking about the case as it has been forwarded to the state Attorney General’s office and state Office of Disciplinary Counsel for advice and possible action, Iseri-Carvalho in an e-mail advised against the newspaper printing “false statements” but did not elaborate.
When pressed for what, specifically, in the court filings were “false statements,” Iseri-Carvalho said, “I will not jeopardize this case by violating disciplinary rules, despite your insistence.
“As you already probably know, our rules of professional conduct for attorneys prohibit us from trying cases in the media. Our office follows ethical rules,” she said. “The evidence that you are well aware of was that a video recording captured a theft in progress.”
Zenger on Wednesday said all of his court filings are factual and he has paperwork proof that he will produce if called to do so.
Court records indicate Zenger filed a memorandum seeking to disqualify the county Office of the Prosecuting Attorney under 12 rules of penal procedure, including arguing that the prior relationship between Rego and Iseri-Carvalho constitutes a conflict of interest on the OPA’s part.
The OPA filed a motion in opposition to Zenger’s motion, claiming Rego failed to show any conflict concerning the Kaua‘i theft case at hand.
“This case stems from an incident which occurred on Aug. 23, 2009, and has nothing to do with anything which occurred 20 years ago in defendant’s life,” the OPA wrote in court documents.
McDowell indicated in court records that the case was handled correctly by someone other than Iseri-Carvalho, and that OPA offered Rego a plea agreement — five years probation for pleading guilty to a lesser charge of third-degree theft.
Rego rejected it in part because there is dispute over the amount of money allegedly stolen. He also claims he took the items and went out into the store parking lot to try to locate the man in front of him in the check-out line, but couldn’t find him.
Christopher Webster of Kalaheo claims there was over $3,000 in a packet that included credit cards and other plastic wrapped in rubber bands that he left at a check-out counter at the Koloa Big Save. Rego said there was less than $100 in cash.
The store surveillance camera shows a man taking the packet Webster left behind, and Kaua‘i Police Detective Eric Shibuya recognized the man as his high school classmate, court records show.
Rego, 45, of Koloa, a self-employed fisherman, pleaded not guilty in December. Webster, 49, is a tennis pro.
The OPA has referred the case to the ODC and state AG’s office, “and as such am prohibited from commenting on this matter at this time,” Iseri-Carvalho said in an e-mail.
Christopher Young, a supervisory deputy attorney general, said Iseri-Carvalho called him in June asking whether she should conflict out of the Rego case.
“On its face I don’t see a conflict,” Young said of Iseri-Carvalho’s relationship with Rego 20 years ago and the year-old theft case.
Young also suggested in June that Iseri-Carvalho check with the ODC as well, to see if they could offer insight about whether a conflict exists and whether an ethical violation could have occurred with Iseri-Carvalho’s decision to take and keep the case.
“Ultimately, the court will make the decision,” Young said.
When a case is referred to the AG’s office, depending on the AG’s caseload, it will either accept the case or give it to a private attorney who they would deputize a special assistant attorney general for the purposes of reviewing the case and seeing it through to fruition if warranted, he said. The office also has the option to review it and decline it, he added.
Editor’s note: The Garden Island published a correction to this story on Aug. 6.
• The Aug. 5 article entitled “Battle brewing” should state that county prosecutors are not seeking enhanced sentencing against defendant Dennis Louis Rego Jr. Also, the state Attorney General’s office doesn’t use outside private counsel as special deputy attorneys general; the office deputizes prosecutors from other county prosecutors’ offices to take certain cases.
