HILO, Hawaii – Political scientists Dr. Keanu Sai is objecting to his portrayal in a recent TV news story that reported on a contract he entered into with the embattled Office of Hawaiian Affairs to produce a manuscript on land tenure in Hawaii.

On February 14, Hawaii News Now reported that OHA – currently under pressure to conduct an audit of administrative expenditures – paid $70,000 to a “former felon at the center of the Hawaiian sovereignty debate for a report he never produced,” according to internal agency documents obtained by Hawaii News Now.

The news story reported “Sai said he dropped the study because it would have justified the current land title system, which he believes is illegal,” and that “he’s not returning the money to OHA.”

After the story aired, Sai fired back with an email to reporter Rick Daysog that he says he blind carbon copied to over 300 other recipients.

“I am very disappointed with your story on Hawai‘i News Now that sought to portray me as a fraud,” Sai wrote. “It was very distasteful, disrespectful and irresponsible.”

Sai said the report failed to state his reasoning for not submitting the manuscript for publication. “I’m protecting State of Hawai‘i officials, which includes the OHA Trustees, from criminal liability for committing the specific crimes of pillaging land revenues under international humanitarian law,” Sai wrote. “I will submit it for publication when I am satisfied that I’ve done all that I can to mitigate the criminal liability of State of Hawai‘i officials, even when they don’t believe I’m trying to help them.”

Sai was particularly unhappy with the reference to his felony conviction under Perfect Title, which he wrote about in detail in his email to Daysog.

When you brought up Perfect Title Company in the interview, I told you that the attacks I received in the 1990s did not address historical facts and laws that apply to land titles in its title reports that the company produced, but rather the slandering of my name and reputation by constantly saying I was advising people to not pay their mortgages. I never did. In fact, I told you that a mortgage is a “security instrument” or “collateral” that secures the repayment of a loan. The loan is what you pay and not a mortgage. With or without a mortgage the borrower still owes the outstanding money left on the loan. As such, Perfect Title Company was advising its clients that they had title insurance to cover their debt owed under the loan. This is a called a lender’s title insurance policy that the lender requires the borrower to purchase in the event that that there’s a defect in title and the mortgage is, as a result, void. When Perfect Title Company’s clients began to file their insurance claims with their title insurance companies, the title companies in Hawai‘i, such as Title Guaranty led by their attorney John Jubinsky, an all out assault began against myself and Perfect Title Company in order to shift attention away from title companies. At a symposium put on at the Hawai‘i Prince Hotel by the Hawai‘i Developers Council in July of 1997 that centered on Perfect Title Company, Bruce Graham, an attorney and instructor of land titles at the William S. Richardson School of Law School and one of the panelists along with myself, admitted to me after that he could not refute Perfect Title’s land title reports. His only comment to me was that America’s here and that’s just how it is. I was not intimidated by this statement because I knew that America had nothing to do with title insurance. It was the title companies in Hawai‘i that would lose. From title insurance policies to the lie that Perfect Title was telling people not to pay their mortgage was absurd but it persisted even today in your story. This is how shallow your story is.

These malicious attacks in the media by the title companies led to a police raid of our office and my arrest for racketeering, tax evasion and theft. These outlandish allegations were unfounded but it was disseminated throughout the media as if I was part of the mafia. They later dropped these outlandish charges and indicted me on a so-called attempted theft of property by doing a title search and showing that the title was defective as a result of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government in 1893. There were no lawful notaries after the January 17, 1893 to acknowledge the transference of title by deed. All titles could not be conveyed after January 17. The title companies and the State of Hawai‘i could not refute this fact. Furthermore, I told you over the phone that real estate is not the subject of larceny or theft. Only personal property, which is moveable, such as a car or cash, is capable of being stolen, but real property, which is immovable, such as real estate, is not capable of being stolen because you can’t move the land therefore you can’t steal it. The whole process was malicious, and where was the media in all of this. They were all complicit and whenever I was interviewed by reporters such as Barbara Marshall or Rob Perez they always twisted what I said in order to maintain their false narrative. I also remember you told me in the interview that you worked with Rob Perez at the newspaper during this time, which I then became very suspect because you apparently have the same bias.”

“I can only surmise that your story fits quite well under the heading of Alternative Facts and Fake News because the real facts apparently don’t matter to you,” Sai wrote at the conclusion of his email.

Sai sat down for an interview with Big Island Video News in an attempt to present his side of the story.

During the interview, Sai also discussed his involvement in a future Fact finding to be conducted through the International Court of Arbitration, and – the big news maker these days – President Donald Trump.

NEXT: The Larson Case, Round Two – International Fact Finding