Jodee Haugh appeared to be a prolific campaign donor. 

Over the last two decades, she donated approximately $25,000 to candidates running for Honolulu and state offices, according to state data. 

But it was all a lie, she told a jury on Thursday. The only political donation she’d ever made with her own money was $5 to Neil Abercrombie, she said. 

The rest of the donations, she said, were made in Hough’s name by her aunt, Terri Ann Otani, who worked for Mitsunaga & Associates Inc., a politically connected engineering firm. Otani is now on trial for participating in a scheme to bribe former Honolulu prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro with campaign donations so he would pursue a case against a former Mitsunaga firm employee.

Prosecutors say the effort to steer tens of thousands of dollars to Kaneshiro was part of a well-established campaign financing apparatus run by former CEO Dennis Mitsunaga and his employees, including Otani. 

On Thursday, Haugh, 39, testified that Otani would call her, instructing her to email her with a written authorization to donate to a politician. And Haugh did as she was told, according to copies of emails shown to the jury.

“Was that your money?” federal prosecutor Michael Wheat asked Haugh in court on Thursday. 

“No.”

“Where did it come from?

“From Aunty Terri.”

In some cases, Haugh — who lived in Los Angeles and Hilo in the last 20 years — wasn’t even familiar with the politicians she was donating to, she testified. 

“And did you have $25,000 in discretionary income to give to candidates?” Wheat asked.

“No,” Haugh said. 

Haugh testified on Thursday that she allowed the donations in her name because “I wanted to help my aunty," and she didn't know there was anything wrong with it.

“She said it was 100% legal and OK to do, and I trusted her," Haugh said.

In fact, making straw donations — donating to political candidates in someone else's name or with money that is not one's own — is a crime.

Campaign finance data shows the Kaneshiro campaign received a combined $1,500 ostensibly from Haugh in 2015 and 2016. When she was asked at a grand jury in July 2021 whether she had made those donations, Haugh said she had. 

“That was a lie,” she said on the stand on Thursday.  

After Haugh testified to the grand jury, her aunt left a voicemail played for the jury on Thursday.

"Don't talk to anybody else, to the FBI and stuff," Otani says in the recording. "They're the enemy. They're attacking me. You shouldn't be helping them."

Wheat asked Haugh what she thought when she received that voicemail.

“That she did something really bad," Haugh said.

Otani also left a voicemail with her sister and Haugh's mother, JoAnn Aurello. In the recording, played for the jury, Otani said she needed to know who Haugh spoke to, what questions she was asked and the answers she gave.

“I don't know how I’m going to avoid all this crap … They’re going to put me in jail," Otani says on the recording. “Tell her to think about it and help me get out of this shit ... I need the information now."

Meanwhile, Haugh searched the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission's website for her name and discovered many donations that she didn't know about.

“I saw a lot of names on there that I didn’t recognize," she said. "I freaked out."

"They're the enemy. They're attacking me. You shouldn't be helping them."

Terri Ann Otani speaking to her niece about the FBI in a voicemail in 2021

In September 2021, Haugh got a target letter from the FBI informing her she was under investigation for "false statements and obstruction of justice.” She said she subsequently hired an attorney and returned to the grand jury to correct her testimony.

“I explained that I was really nervous and scared, and I was blindsided by being there, and I was shocked when I saw the checks on the screen in the first grand jury," she said on Thursday. That, she said, is why she lied.

Haugh also told the grand jury about the voicemail she received from her aunt. Haugh testified on Thursday she did not know how Otani even knew about her grand jury testimony in July 2021. But Haugh recalled seeing Sheri Tanaka, an attorney for Mitsunaga & Associates, in the hallway at that first grand jury appearance.

Tanaka is now a co-defendant in the ongoing trial.

A 'Strange' Drive In The Hollywood Hills

Aurello, Haugh's mother, was also called as a witness on Thursday. Aurello is Otani's sister and Mitsunaga's first cousin.

Like her daughter, Aurello was contacted by the FBI during the federal investigation. Aurello said she called Tanaka because she was Mitsunaga & Associates' attorney.

Tanaka offered to meet her in Los Angeles, where both women were at the time, according to Aurello.

Aurello assumed they would meet somewhere public, like a restaurant. But when Tanaka picked up Aurello, Tanaka started driving outside the city, Aurello said, noting she didn't know where they were going. Eventually, they stopped in a residential area located on a hillside, Aurello said.

“She stopped the car and told me to leave the cell phones in the car, and we stepped out," Aurello said. “I thought that was really strange, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

Aurello testified, she told Tanaka she "didn’t want to hear about" what the federal case was about.

“All I wanted to know was whether the call from the FBI agent is legit and should I call him back,” she said. But when Aurello told Tanaka she didn't want to know the details of the case, Tanaka became "very serious."

"She said if anybody asks you if you donated monies, she told me, you say no," Aurello said.

Ultimately, Aurello said she got the answer to her question.

“She said yes, it’s OK to call this agent back — or not," Aurello said. “That didn’t feel right, too, because when she said 'or not,' I said: 'But you just told me it’s OK, so I am going to call him back.'”

Aurello indicated she left with an uneasy feeling.

“It just didn’t make sense, you know the whole conversation or driving out there," she said. "It just didn’t seem right.”

Aurello said she'd never made a contribution to Keith Kaneshiro. The jury was later shown a record of a $250 donation in her name to Kaneshiro in 2016.

On cross-examination, Otani's attorney Doris Lum and Tanaka's attorney Crystal Glendon questioned Aurello about the alleged drive into the Hollywood Hills. The attorneys noted that Aurello waited until last month to tell federal officials about the alleged interaction and emphasized that Aurello was sharing details in the trial that she had not disclosed to anyone before.

"Are you willing to do anything for your daughter?" Glendon asked.

"Yes," Aurello responded.

“Even change your story to help the government?”

“No," Aurello said.