The owner of two West Maui golf courses has accused a Maui landowner of repeated wire fraud and racketeering amid an ongoing legal battle.
The latest shot fired in a back-and-forth series of lawsuits between Maui Land and Pineapple and TY Management Corp. — owner of the Kapalua Golf Courses in West Maui — is a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in which TY Management accuses MLP executives of inflating water prices to defraud TY Management of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
MLP maintains the Honokōhau Ditch System, an irrigation system that supplies water to much of West Maui. The golf courses TY Management owns and operates depend upon that water, and MLP bills TY and other users for their water use at a set rate each month.
According to a complaint TY filed last week, MLP can raise water rates to cover certain increases in operational and maintenance costs. However, MLP cannot pass on costs for capital improvements or repairs to users.
Nonetheless, the lawsuit alleges that MLP executives doctored records to pass off capital improvement projects as maintenance, passing on the costs to TY.
Specifically, the lawsuit names as defendants MLP CEO Race Randle, former MLP Vice President of Land Productivity and Asset Management Kainoa Casco, MLP itself and the Hawai‘i Water Service, the contractor that operates and maintains the Honokōhau Ditch System on MLP’s behalf.
The suit claims that MLP’s forecasts for its operation and maintenance costs have increased nearly tenfold since 2022, while TY’s water rate has increased by more than 300% between the Januarys of 2025 and 2026 alone.
MLP’s alleged malfeasance comes after years of deterioration and deferred maintenance of the ditch system. TY, along with a local farm and several area owners’ associations, also sued MLP last year, accusing the company of neglecting its obligations to its users by allowing the ditch system to fall into disrepair.
The Hawai‘i Commission on Water Resource Management fined MLP $140,000 last year for allowing water levels to drop beneath the commission’s standards.
TY’s latest suit alleges that Randle contacted TY in 2024, requesting that TY’s water development agreement be amended to include a rate change that passed on the cost of improving the ditch system to TY. But, the suit goes on, MLP implemented a rate change before TY answered, increasing TY’s rate by 243%, from about $0.49 per thousand gallons to $1.68 per thousand gallons.
When TY asked for documentation to support the cost increase, MLP allegedly refused to provide such documentation, although the company listed about $1.7 million in projected operation and maintenance costs.
In June of this year, MLP reportedly informed TY it would raise rates again, listing some $2.4 million in projected costs, many of which were reportedly up to three times higher than the projections in 2025.
The new rate took effect in July, and TY is now paying $2.15 per thousand gallons. TY estimates that it was improperly charged at least $447,000 in 2025 alone.
The suit claims that TY is in possession of documents confirming that Randle, Casco and HWS conspired to doctor reports; the suit includes a draft report appearing to scrub all uses of the word “repair” and replacing them with “maintain” or “maintenance,” sometimes without care for grammatical sense.
All of this, the suit states, is “textbook financial fraud,” and the conspiracy between Randle, Casco, MLP and HWS constitutes racketeering that can be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act.
TY declined to comment on the situation.
A statement by Maui Land & Pineapple characterized the suit as an attempt by a “foreign billionaire” — TY Management is owned by Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of Uniqlo — to seize control of the Honokōhau Ditch System.
“We believe this lawsuit is simply another effort to pressure MLP into transferring the system to him,” the MLP statement reads.
“We refuse to be bullied by a billionaire who seeks control of the system while refusing to pay his fair share of the costs to maintain it.”
In addition to the 2025 lawsuit over MLP’s management of the ditch system, another lawsuit TY filed last year accused Randle and MLP of illegally annexing land into MLP’s resort association as a supposed power grab. Those two lawsuits are scheduled for trials in 2027.
No court dates have been set in the latest lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Maui County and MLP initiated proceedings earlier this year to have the county acquire the ditch system.
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