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| Malia Zimmerman |
A good denial, the best point in law ... An Irish Proverb
Hawaii’s conventional media would not report on the controversial 1996 court dispute involving 85-year-old Masumi Murasaki or the current wife of Honolulu Mayoral Candidate Duke Bainum, Jennifer Toma-Banium, before the Nov. 2, 2004, General Election, no matter how many people in the general public demanded it.
Court filings documented allegations of elderly abuse against Masumi Murasaki by then Jennifer Alonso-Toma, including the misuse of around $400,000 and facilitating the changing of his will just before he died in January of 1997 to benefit her and her mother, rather than Murasaki’s son, daughter and many grandchildren. Jennifer and her mother, Arlene Yoshizumi, still control and benefit from the property left by Murasaki in Waialae Gardens, according to public record, renting his Waialae Gardens apartment to tenants, despite the wishes of Murasaki, who in the final weeks of his life 7 years ago directed his assets to go to a charity. Jennifer married Duke Bainum, a multi-millionaire, in February 2004, the third marriage for both of them.
Because the conventional media refused to address the issue, senior citizens took to the streets and passed out copies of the report and public documents to friends, family, neighbors and fellow churchgoers to ensure the public was fully informed about their candidates for mayor before voting on Election Day. Some of them spent up to $1,000 of their own pension money to do so. Hundreds of calls continue to pour in to Hawaii Reporter from CPAs, bank managers, caregivers and senior citizens, all concerned about elder protection.
The movement is quite remarkable -- members of the public are up in arms and the conventional media, who can not control them, are still ignoring what has become one of the biggest stories of the year.
KHON-2 and KITV-4 news, along with The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin have condemned the publishing of the story as being beneath their "standards." The conventional media has said it was unethical to publish the story, all the while ignoring the ethics of someone who, according to court records, had taken advantage of the person for whom she was the "caregiver," someone who had become a public figure through the campaign for mayor by her husband, Duke Bainum.
Meanwhile, some reporters participated in an underground smear against Hawaii Reporter trying to discredit the story, including KITV’s Keoki Kerr and Bob Jones of MidWeek who sent out nasty emails to members of the public who wrote to them about the case. (Little did Kerr, Jones and other "journalists" who were vehemently trying to discredit the court case know some of the Murasaki family members who live in Hawaii were actually emailing them and were appalled at the responses they received from these "journalists" as they had firsthand knowledge of the case.) Andy Winer, an attorney who coordinated the Bainum campaign, also sent out hundreds of emails to the general public personally and professionally attacking this editor and Hawaii Reporter, and ex-Supreme Court Justice Robert Klein sent out voicemails throughout an Oahu telemarketing service telling voters not to believe the "rumors." The Bainum camp, toward the final days of the campaign, posted personal and professional attacks on Hawaii Reporter and this editor on the campaign Web site, including publishing reports by Jones and another local blogger. Threats also were made against Hawaii Reporter’s advertisers by someone using a false name and email, and I received several threats, including death threats, by people caught up in the full-scale attack against Hawaii Reporter.
Except for one letter published in MidWeek by me, the daily and weekly newspapers in Hawaii continue to suppress the information the public receives about this story in that they are blocking all positive comments made by members of the public. Hawaii Reporter has been publishing these ignored letters that were sent to the conventional media, once again being the only news source in town that will provide its readers with any and all comments that are sent in.
The smear by Bainum’s people backfired in a huge way -- their strange personal attack on the messenger, rather than telling Jennifer to give her side of the story, drove more people to Hawaii Reporter -- up to 58,000 people a day. The negative emails, voicemails, calls from campaign volunteers and nasty calls to radio talk shows by Bainum public relations people only piqued people’s curiosity and drove them to the public records published on Hawaii Reporter. There the public could review the actual documents surrounding the case. That included letters from Jennifer and her lawyers to the Murasakis and Jennifer’s spending reports, which clearly showed she drained Murasaki’s personal accounts, sometimes by as much as $10,000 in one day, even though she was contracted to receive just $350 a month.
Seventeen days after the Nov. 2, 2004, election, the conventional media still has not reported on the facts of the actual court case or people involved, only on the fact that the story was reported by Hawaii Reporter and was deemed a "smear" by the Bainum campaign and his supporters. The political columnists who wrote about the "smear" never bothered to interview the Murasaki children, grandchildren and other relatives in Hawaii, including son Dennis Murasaki who flew in from Florida to set the record straight. Some of the television reporters who interviewed Dennis Murasaki and researched the case before the election, told the family they were waiting (and still are waiting) for clearance from management before proceeding.
But the conventional media flood gates opened to the controversy surrounding the publishing of the report by Hawaii Reporter on Election Night when Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris announced on live television that there was a "smear" against Bainum and his wife Jennifer Toma-Bainum. Harris said time would tell if the "smear" worked against him enough to erode his lead in the polls. Harris called the "smear" anonymous," despite the fact that the story was not a "smear" it was a report on a court case, with court documents also published to back up the report, and not anonymous as it had a byline.
While the conventional media allowed themselves to be led around by the nose by Harris, asking innocently "what smear?", "what was the smear about?" as if they had not received dozens of calls and letters collectively about the report -- many political observers knew right away what Harris was doing.
Harris was getting revenge.
During the campaign for mayor, Duke Bainum made his main campaign issues "cleaning up corruption at city hall," "bringing honest change" and "positive change," and "breaking the cycle between campaign contributions and city contracts." Harris was infuriated by this, saying during his radio appearances throughout the mayoral campaign that his administration is not "corrupt," there is no link between campaign contributions and contracts awarded by his administration and that he was insulted by Duke Bainum’s whole campaign message. During Harris' tirade, he did not acknowledge the three-year investigation by state, city and federal officials into the elaborate "pay to play" system, in which law enforcement uncovered a scheme where businesses made campaign contributions and other gifts to Harris and subsequently received contracts, concession rights, zoning or permitting applied for from the city. Harris also did not mention that more than 80 Hawaii companies have been fined by the state Campaign Spending Commission for participating in the scheme, because they laundered money to Harris -- sometimes as much as $200,000 in just a short period -- by using false names to keep their contributions under the legal limit.
Duke Bainum's 5 million dollar advertising campaign against this "corruption" in government and for mayor, was a major betrayal by Duke Bainum of Harris. Duke Bainum was commonly referred to as "Harris’ lap dog" while he was on the Honolulu City Council because he’d been the primary cheerleader for most of Harris’ projects, including the controversial $1 billion Bus Rapid Transit system, the visioning team projects and the Brunch on the Beach events.
But to win, Duke Bainum knew he had to distance himself from the controversy surrounding Harris’ administration and campaign for the last three years. Duke Bainum also backed away from the criticism by the public of Harris’ out-of-control spending and subsequent massive tax and fee increases, even though Duke Bainum had helped perpetuate that spending as Council budget chair by backing Harris’ many projects, buildings and events.
Later, the conventional media reporters who acted naive on Election Night admitted they’d known about the case all along, but they defended their refusal to publish the report by saying the case was old and not significant as Jennifer was not the candidate for Honolulu mayor -- her husband was. Many people in the public believed otherwise -- they felt a spouse used in such a high profile way during the campaign, including being featured soley in campaign ads, was "fair game" and should be investigated.
But the report may never have made the "mainstream" press if it was not for Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris, who went on several major television and radio networks to discuss the mayor’s race that election night.
Harris started a firestorm, and in the process, got negative publicity for Duke Bainum, one of his newest critics, and took a slap at Hawaii Reporter, the Internet newspaper that has closely detailed many of Harris’ shenanigans and budget fiascos while in office.
But in the end, truth prevailed and the voters saw through the media mania and political shibai.
Harris’ administrators continue to be subpoenaed to secret investigative grand juries in the city prosecutor’s probe of Harris’ fundraising practices and the prosecutor continues to build his case against the mayor’s campaign, donors and administration.
The Murasakis are still seeking justice for their family as they have since 1996 and more people have volunteered their services and money in that fight.
The voters decided after having the facts that the conduct of a spouse of a candidate does matter to them.
And Hawaii Reporter did what a news entity is supposed to do -- report the news accurately and treat the public with the respect it deserves by giving them the facts and public documents and empowering them through knowledge.
Whether the conventional media and politicians backing Bainum like it or not, Hawaii’s public saw through the "shooting the messenger" act that still continues in Hawaii’s conventional media today, the conventional media was discredited as news sources that "give the whole story" and Hawaii Reporter gained valuable, impassioned readers who take action when they see injustice despite the consequences.
See related stories:
"Controversy Surrounds Final Years of Life of Masumi Murasaki and His Caregiver, Jennifer Alonso-Toma, Now Wife of Mayoral Candidate Duke Bainum"
"Public Record Documents in the Case of Jennifer Bainum vs. Masumi Murasaki"
"Seeking Justice, Closure"
"Anatomy of a 'Smear'"
"Tragic Story Caught up In Politics"
Reach Malia Zimmerman, editor and president of Hawaii Reporter, via email at mailto:Malia@hawaiireporter.com
