LIHUE — Obstruction of justice and extortion have been added to the list of charges against a Lihue woman accused of filing fraudulent tax returns, laundering money and attempting to undermine a federal investigation into the alleged scheme.
According to court documents in the federal case pending against Leihinahina Sullivan, she allegedly continued to file tax returns on behalf of multiple people without their knowledge, even after she was indicted and arrested in February 2017.
Since then, charges against Sullivan have continued to pile up. Last month, federal prosecutors indicted Sullivan for the fourth time since her case was opened, adding six new counts, including extortion she allegedly committed between May and October of 2018 and obstruction of justice, stemming from her actions as recently as March of this year.
The vast majority of the 60 counts against her are for crimes she allegedly committed after the case against her was initiated.
“After Ms. Sullivan was indicted for tax crimes, detection has become near impossible, because she has obfuscated the IP addresses, the device I.D.s that she’s used, and the email addresses to try to make it look like somebody else is preparing tax returns,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Perlmutter said during a January 2018 court hearing.
Sullivan had previously been charged with submitting falsified documents to the IRS, wire fraud, mail fraud, identity theft and money laundering. Ten of the counts carry maximum prison sentences of up to 20 years, and all of them are punishable by a $250,000 fine.
Sullivan is now attempting to act as her own lawyer. In a motion filed last week, her court-appointed defense attorney requested permission to withdraw from the case, “because Ms. Sullivan would like to represent herself.”
She has already gone through two other lawyers since the case began, and federal prosecutors are asking the judge not to grant Sullivan’s most recent request on the grounds that anyone acting as her defense attorney would have access to documents containing personal identifying information — the same material she is accused of using to defraud the government.
“The nature of the defendant’s crimes involve stolen identities and misusing them to commit various types of fraud,” Perlmutter wrote in an Aug. 17 motion opposing Sullivan’s request.
“The defendant cannot be trusted with this information,” Perlmutter continued. “More significantly, she is in violation of multiple court orders on these very topics.”
According to charging documents in the case, Sullivan allegedly engaged in a wide-ranging and varied scheme involving dozens of her associates, among them, clients of her nonprofit, Mobile Native Hawaiian Health Inc., college students applying for scholarships, and multiple people who entrusted her to file their taxes.
Sullivan allegedly gave the IRS multiple fraudulent tax documents including itemized medical expenses, charitable donations and unreimbursed employment expenses, and prepared tax statements containing false information regarding filing status, dependents, business expenses, income and claims for tax credits such as child care, according to charging documents.
“For college-bound students, Sullivan prepared and submitted false student loan, grant, scholarship, and financial aid applications and documents that requested money,” prosecutors wrote in one of the three subsequent indictments filed against Sullivan after her Feb. 23, 2017 arrest, when she faced only a dozen counts related to fraud.
“She also prepared and submitted false college applications in which she wrote student essays with lies about the students’ financial and living conditions,” the 2018 indictment continued. “In some instances, she solicited payments as donations,” to her nonprofit mobile health clinic and “communicated with the providers and colleges as if she were the students.”
The judge presiding over the case is not set to rule until later this week on whether Sullivan will be allowed to represent herself, but she has already started acting on her own behalf.
Sullivan filed three motions Monday, asking that her case be dismissed due to a violation of her speedy trial rights and “procedural due process,” accusing federal prosecutors of misconduct, and claiming that her defense attorney failed to provide effective legal assistance.
Sullivan’s most recent period of incarceration at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu began when she turned herself in on July 26, the day after prosecutors filed a fourth indictment against her for allegedly trying to persuade a witness not to talk to law enforcement agents, to give false testimony about her to a grand jury and to destroy a cell phone containing potentially incriminating evidence.
“Since that time, Sullivan has not been able to access any of her paperwork in regards to her defense,” Sullivan said in one of the motions she filed Monday, writing in the third person. She went on to accuse the U.S. Attorney’s office of neglecting to return documents seized from her home that were prepared for her legal defense.
Sullivan also said she tried to call her attorney on the fourth day of her incarceration, “but she hung up on her and would not take her call.” Sullivan went on to say that her attorney does not know the case, “was getting alleged victims confused,” and “continues to have inappropriate conversations with Sullivan’s husband.”
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
