Leo Caires filed a whistleblower suit last week. In that suit, the former chief of staff to Maui Mayor Richard Bissen alleges that in March 2024 he found a $45,532.32 invoice in the County’s Office of Economic Development.
The invoice was dated August 16, 2023 — about one week after the Maui fires.
The company on the invoice was RTFEX Depot. The address listed was in Scottsdale, Arizona. Caires called the number on the invoice. An answering machine picked up. It did not say the company’s name. He called the Arizona Corporation Commission. It had no record of the company.
Caires was a former commercial banker. He suspected fraud. He asked Maui’s Corporation Counsel for advice, and they recommended a formal investigation.
During the investigation, Caires says he found that one of Bissen’s executive assistants was part of the deal. The assistant was Mayson “Pono” Asano. Asano said he picked up the equipment in the parking lot of the Kahului Target. He said he would delivere it to the grantee on Moloka‘i. But when Caires asked for receipts and bank records, Asano had none.
Caires also spoke with Cynthia Lallo. She supervised the mayor’s executive assistants at the time. Lallo said Asano had acted as an agent on other grants. That work had nothing to do with his job.
Caires believed Asano was breaking the terms of the grants. He believed it was fraud. A mayor’s office employee was defrauding the County of Maui.
When Caires gave the mayor an update, Bissen told him to back off. Bissen also told him to turn the investigation into an audit.
When Caires kept going, he was cut out of meetings, then demoted and finally fired. Lallo replaced him as chief of staff.
This is not the first time Bissen’s team has been in the news for alleged misuse of funds.
Lallo’s daughter Rachael was awarded a $150,000 marketing contract with the County. Both Lallos had worked on Bissen’s campaign, with Rachael building Bissen’s website and designing logos, lawn signs and digital ads. In her bid, Rachael listed Bissen’s campaign chair, Charlene Schulenburg, as a reference. That contract was later scrutinized by the county council.
Luana Mahi was the director of Maui’s Office of Economic Development. She was placed on paid leave after nonprofits tied to her family received more than $1 million in county grants. Mahi’s former business associate also received more than $200,000 in grants.
In February 2026, the County of Maui released a fraud risk assessment. The County Auditor had ordered it. Spire Hawai‘i LLP wrote it. The assessment found that the County’s controls against fraud are “not adequate to mitigate likely fraud risks.”
Spire surveyed the people who run the County. Ninety-five percent of department heads rated their own department’s fraud risk as low. None said it was high. The elected officials — the mayor and councilmembers — answered the other way. Eighty-six percent rated the County’s fraud risk as medium. Fourteen percent rated it high. None rated it low. The people closest to where fraud would happen were the most convinced it could not happen.
According to Caires’ complaint, he reported what he had found up the chain. The mayor first sent him to the OED director. When Caires pressed on, the mayor told him to stop the investigation and turn it into an audit. Corporation Counsel attorneys did not agree.
The Office of Economic Development is where Caires says he found the invoice. But the Office of Economic Development is not its own department. It is a program inside the Office of the Mayor.
The Spire report does not assess fraud risk in the Mayor’s office, though it ranks the risk for 20 other departments.
There is no single process in Maui County for reporting, investigating, or responding to fraud. Nine separate offices receive fraud reports. Each applies its own standards. They are the Department of Finance, the Department of Management, the Mayor, the Department of Personnel Services, Corporation Counsel, the Police, the Prosecuting Attorney, individual department heads, and the Ethics Commission.
The American founders separated powers and set up checks and balances. They were realists about human nature. Madison’s line about men not being angels was not rhetoric. Man is sinful. Executives asked to investigate themselves do not investigate themselves. A system that routes fraud reports through the people accused of fraud is not an oversight system.
Accountability happens in Hawaiʻi, sometimes. Earlier this month, Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke ended her reelection bid. She had received a target letter from the state attorney general’s office. Campaign finance questions remained. Last week, the state auditor took a rare step. He publicly flagged problems with $40 million of emergency contracts to HomeAid Hawaiʻi. Both show a system that can check itself.
After Caires made his claims, Bissen issued a statement. “As Mayor,” he said, “I have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure our team delivers for the people of Maui County.”
Bissen should start with the recommendations in the Spire report.
- Build fraud prevention and internal control systems based on recognized industry frameworks.
- Write a countywide policy for reporting and handling fraud.
- Screen vendors and employees for fraud risk.
- Train civil servants to put fraud prevention first.
This is not a progressive agenda or a conservative agenda. It is the limited-government agenda. Government power must be limited and held to account because government is made of fallen men and women.
The invoice was for $45,532.32. The county has set aside $350,000 in legal fees to defend itself against Caires. The cost of a trial or settlement will likely run much higher. The people of Maui will foot the bill.
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Author Sterling Higa can be reached at hello@sterlinghiga.com.
