Hawaii AG to investigate $35,000 bribery case after federal evidence shared

Hawaiʻi AG to open state review after federal evidence-sharing

Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez said Tuesday that her office will investigate a Hawaiʻi lawmaker recorded accepting $35,000 in a paper bag, reversing course after earlier decisions to defer to federal prosecutors.

Lopez’s announcement followed federal authorities telling state officials that they would share evidence of the 2022 transaction, according to an Associated Press account of the attorney general’s statement. The move means the inquiry will now proceed in state court authority even though federal authorities have described the matter as part of an ongoing investigation.

The record described in court materials centers on former state Rep. Ty Cullen, who was arrested for bribery in 2021 and later became an FBI asset. As part of an effort to help in the investigation and reduce his eventual sentence, Cullen accepted $3,000 from an unnamed bribery subject and two days later recorded that person handing $35,000 to a legislative colleague, the AP report said.

A court filing described the recipient as “influential,” but the lawmaker’s identity has remained hidden from the public, and it is unclear from the reporting whether the recipient is still in elected office. The $35,000 handoff became a focus of public scrutiny after Civil Beat disclosed the existence of the recording last year, with questions raised about whether the payment was a bribe, an unreported gift or campaign contribution, or legal campaign cash bundling.

State officials previously said they would not launch a parallel probe. The AP report said the attorney general and both houses of the Legislature had repeatedly declined to investigate, aiming to avoid interfering with the federal case as it developed.

Green and Lopez say a state inquiry is in the public interest

In the Tuesday announcement, Gov. Josh Green and Lopez determined together that a state investigation is in the public interest. The attorney general’s office said Green has emphasized individuals coming forward voluntarily when concerns arise and expressed hope that matters can be resolved in a way that maintains public trust in government.

The office also said legislative leadership—while deferring to earlier attorney general recommendations—had urged that the matter be formally reviewed to ensure accountability and transparency. It pointed to a Jan. 16 decision by federal authorities to share evidence as providing what it described as a clear path for the attorney general to proceed without jeopardizing the ongoing federal investigation.

The investigation will be led by the attorney general’s special investigation and prosecution division, which was created in 2022 in the wake of the bribery scandal. To preserve the integrity of the investigation, the attorney general’s office said Green and Lopez would not comment further.

Lawmakers and Silvert press for disclosure of the unnamed recipient

Tuesday’s development drew renewed pressure for the Legislature to identify the recipient of the $35,000. Rep. Della Au Belatti said the name of the lawmaker who took the money needs to be revealed as soon as possible, and she said the investigation should not be “bottled up.”

Alexander Silvert, a retired federal public defender who has led a citizen petition effort, called on the governor to order the attorney general to reveal the identity of the mystery lawmaker to the Legislature. Silvert said the conduct may not prove illegal, but that the Legislature should be able to address what to do with the person within its own authority.

Belatti, who is running for Congress, and Kanani Souza, a Republican also running for Congress, have pushed the attorney general to investigate since last year. The AP report said that in a July 2025 letter shared with the media, they urged the attorney general to look into the case, determine what happened, and make the facts public, arguing that understanding the circumstances is important to determining whether laws were broken and to informing any changes that might be needed to protect public trust.

Belatti also said at the press conference that if the $35,000 was dispersed among multiple lawmakers, elected officials may want to return the funds to make it right.

Federal timeline and statute-of-limitations debate

As recently as two weeks before Tuesday, Lopez had said she would not investigate the case, the AP reported, saying she had spoken directly with acting U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson, who she said affirmed that a parallel state investigation would interfere with federal efforts. Since that statement, Civil Beat began surveying living current and former lawmakers who were in office in 2022 starting Jan. 6 to ask whether they were the recipient. The report said almost all said no, with the exception of a few who did not respond and two who had passed away.

Silvert’s petition gained traction, with more than 1,000 signatories as of Tuesday, the AP report said. Rep. Jarrett Keohokalole is also putting forward legislation to extend the statute of limitations for bribery charges to nine years from six years, which would move a potential six-year deadline that would otherwise run out in 2028.

Belatti said lawmakers would need to be isolated if the recipient is still in office, so they cannot vote on the statute of limitations in their own case.

At the same time, a group of House members sought information about how the petition would be handled. In a letter to House Speaker Nadine Nakamura on Tuesday, the AP report said Reps. Belatti, Souza, Terez Amato, Elle Cochran and Kim Coco Iwamoto asked for details about the handling of Silvert’s petition. Souza said at the press conference, “We need to get to the bottom of this.”

That group also sent a letter to Sorenson last week seeking a yes-or-no answer on whether the legislator who accepted the $35,000 is a current sitting legislator. Belatti said Sorenson did not answer that question.