The MailBox conspiracy
New revised edition now available!
Be the first to read the new and improved version of the book. This edition has new information, more photos and documents relating to the case, and an updated epilog.
E HO’OMAU
Ho’omau is the Hawaiian value of perseverance and persistence. In practicing this value we become more tenacious and resilient, and thus more courageous. Ho’omau also means to perpetuate, and to continue in a way that causes good to be long-lasting.
“A very powerful book, because of Silvert’s sleuthing and tenacity and decency, which uncovered much more than two villains but in fact a whole culture of corruption in hawaii.”
- Paul Theroux, Author
“His verve in telling this real but sordid story transforms complex factual and legal matters into what simply has become a great read.”
Aviam Soifer, Law Professor and former Dean of Richardson School of Law, University of
Hawaii
About
Alexander Silvert was raised in New York City and Vermont. After graduating from UCLA and driving a cab in New York and taking a further year of political science at New York University, he switched to Boston College Law School. Upon graduating from law school in 1984, he worked as a state and federal public defender in Philadelphia before moving to Honolulu in 1989 with his wife and three-week-old son to work at the Hawaii Federal Public Defender office. He served as the first assistant FPD from 1992 to his retirement in October 2020. During his tenure he handled numerous high-publicity cases, including representing two defendants in potential federal death penalty cases. In 2000 the author was named Federal Defender of the Year by the National Association of Federal Defenders. Silvert currently provides legal consultation services to defense attorneys in federal cases, and occasionally teaches at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law.
In July 2013, the author began his representation of Gerard Puana, who was charged with destruction of a mailbox owned by Honolulu chief of police Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine Kealoha, third ranked Honolulu city prosecutor. The case continued for over seven Years, with the author starting as defender and ending as the key instigator of the federal prosecution of the Kealohas and their accomplices in what turned out to be the greatest public corruption case in Hawai’i’s history.
