Grand Jury Targets Alleged COVID Graft

Hawaii’s second-highest elected official now stands accused of turning pandemic testing into a cash-for-favors pipeline, deepening fears that COVID money became just another jackpot for political insiders.

Story Snapshot

Oahu grand jury returns 12-count indictment against Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke over alleged bribery tied to COVID-19 testing contracts.
Prosecutors say lobbyist Tobi Solidum offered $35,000 and campaign donations while seeking help on a state COVID testing deal.
Four other officials and insiders are charged, signaling a wider alleged corruption network around pandemic spending.
The case grows from an earlier federal bribery probe and fuels bipartisan anger about politicians using crisis cash for themselves.

Grand jury charges against Hawaii’s lieutenant governor

An Oahu grand jury has indicted Hawaii Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke on twelve criminal counts linked to an alleged bribery scheme rooted in the COVID-19 pandemic testing program. The Hawaii Department of the Attorney General announced that Luke, a Democrat, is charged with criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying candidate committee reports. Prosecutors say these crimes date back to 2022, when Luke was a powerful state lawmaker helping control how emergency health money flowed.

State investigators say the case centers on whether money and political access were traded for help steering a COVID-19 testing contract through Hawaii’s system. Reporting describes a months-long probe by the attorney general’s special investigations division, which reviewed thousands of pages of records and interviewed witnesses after hints of a $35,000 payment surfaced in earlier federal cases. That work led to Friday’s indictment, which turns long-running rumors of pandemic corruption into formal criminal charges against one of Hawaii’s top leaders.

Alleged $35,000 bribe and campaign cash tied to COVID testing

The charging documents and news accounts say local businessman and lobbyist Tobi Solidum is accused of offering Luke a $35,000 bribe connected to a COVID-19 testing contract sought by a company he promoted. Prosecutors also allege Solidum later provided two $5,000 campaign contributions, aiming to influence Luke as she prepared to run for lieutenant governor. One report quotes Solidum as boasting to another lawmaker, “all I got to do is give her more money now,” suggesting he believed cash could buy official action.

Civil Beat reporting shows Luke has admitted receiving the two $5,000 checks from Solidum and his stepdaughter during a 2022 dinner but failed to report them as required by state campaign law. Luke has said no other money changed hands at that meeting and denies that the donations affected her decisions on COVID contracts. Her attorney previously stated he was “surprised” bribery charges were being considered and argued he had seen no evidence she acted with anything but integrity, previewing a likely defense that the payments were legal donations, not bribes.

Five defendants and a wider corruption pattern around pandemic money

Luke is one of five people indicted, showing prosecutors view the case as a broader conspiracy rather than a single rogue official. The other defendants include former state representative Ryan Yamane, airports division leader Ford Fuchigami, former public utilities commission chair and Luke campaign volunteer Leo Asuncion Jr., and lobbyist-businessman Solidum. Each faces a mix of conspiracy, bribery, false statement, and obstruction charges, suggesting an alleged network that linked political power, business interests, and control over state contracts.

State officials say this Hawaii case grew out of a federal bribery investigation that already sent former lawmaker Ty Cullen and former state senator J. Kalani English to prison for taking cash bribes tied to wastewater contracts. That earlier scandal raised alarms about how easily special interests could bend public spending in a small state with a tight political circle. The new indictment extends those fears into the COVID era, where huge sums moved quickly and oversight was loose, feeding a national concern that pandemic relief became a “cash cow” for well-connected insiders rather than a lifeline for regular families.

Why this strikes a nerve across the political spectrum

For many Americans, this story confirms what they already suspect: when Washington and the states unleash emergency funds, the people at the top often find ways to skim, while everyday workers simply try to survive. Conservatives see the case as proof that big-government pandemic programs and rushed spending opened doors for corruption, while liberals see it as another sign that corporate lobbyists and political elites can twist policy away from public needs. Both sides share one core frustration: the system seems built to protect insiders first.

Hawaii’s governor has called on Luke to resign after the indictment, saying the state needs to move forward without the cloud of corruption hanging over its leadership. Yet many citizens, in Hawaii and beyond, doubt that removing one official will fix much. Public corruption prosecutions are relatively rare compared with other crimes, but researchers say they recur often enough to show a deeper institutional problem rather than a few bad apples. That pattern reinforces the growing belief that the real divide in America is not left versus right, but everyday people versus a political class that treats crises as opportunities.