Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke acknowledges that she may be the lawmaker at the heart of a months-long mystery regarding a legislator who allegedly accepted $35,000 in a paper bag in 2022, but she insists that she did nothing wrong.
The state Department of the Attorney General last month opened an investigation into the “influential lawmaker” who was mentioned in a separate federal political corruption probe as allegedly accepting money in a paper bag. The state probe came after months of public pressure to identify the mystery lawmaker, including a community petition to the state Legislature.
Luke told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an interview Monday amid the ongoing furor that she did not take $35,000 in a paper bag in front of state House colleague turned FBI informant Ty J.K. Cullen during a January 2022 dinner, but did accept $10,000 in checks for her campaign from two people whom Cullen introduced her to that night.
In 2022, Luke was the state representative for Makiki and chair of the powerful House Finance Committee.
After Cullen and ex-Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English pleaded guilty in February 2022 to taking bribes from 2014 to 2021 from the late Honolulu businessman Milton J. Choy, Luke said she and her campaign team identified donations from Choy and his orbit received between 2014 and 2019.
Luke said she gave the $25,100 in donations from Choy and 16 family members, friends, and business associates to the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission in February 2022.
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In March 2022, Luke gave back the $10,000 that she was given during her January 2022 dinner with Cullen. Luke was invited to dinner by businessman Tobi Solidum, who asked her to invite Cullen. Luke said her campaign had not initially reported receiving the $10,000 because of a “clerical oversight.“
When Luke arrived at the dinner, she said, Solidum’s daughter Kristen Pae was also there.
The dinner was four years ago and Luke said she does not remember what they talked about. Luke said the dinner was scheduled during a time she was meeting with a lot of potential donors after the launch of her campaign for lieutenant governor in October 2021.
Luke received a $5,000 check from Solidum, a business owner, and his daughter, Kristen Pae, that was deposited on Jan. 21, 2022, to support her campaign for lieutenant governor.
“Ty Cullen was charged with a crime. The way I knew Tobi was through Ty … I knew them to be close. I felt uncomfortable about keeping the donations from Tobi and his daughter … because of his affiliation with Ty and to some extent, Milton (Choy),” said Luke.
“For me, because I met with Ty, and then another person (Solidum) who gave me a contribution, for me I’m thinking … the circumstances are that it could be me (the lawmaker that the FBI videotaped allegedly taking $35,000 in a bag). The fact is I didn’t get $35,000 at that meeting or at that dinner,” she told the Star-Advertiser.
The facts are “very confusing” and “don’t line up,” she said. “But at the same time you still got to wonder”
Luke said she has not discussed the situation with Gov. Josh Green nor directly with Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez.
“We want to make sure that the investigation that is preceding is completely independent and we want to make sure there is no question of any type of influence,” said Luke.
Luke said she has not been interviewed by the FBI as part of their ongoing public corruption probe. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined comment.
“To preserve the integrity of our investigation, the Department of the Attorney General will not be providing further comment on the specifics or status of our investigation at this time,” read a statement Monday to the Star-Advertiser from Lopez’s office.
Lopez announced on Jan. 20 she was opening her investigation into the unnamed politician.
The decision to investigate was a reversal for the Attorney General’s office, which weeks earlier said it would wait until a federal public corruption investigation was complete before taking any action.
But on Jan. 16, the U.S. Department of Justice told state officials that it would provide the state with evidence concerning an incident involving an unnamed influential state legislator who allegedly accepted approximately $35,000 in funds.
Four days later, Green and Lopez announced that they had “jointly determined that a state investigation into this matter” is in the public interest.
English was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison in July 2022 and Cullen received a two-year sentence in April 2023. Cullen received less prison time than English because of his “substantial assistance” to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Cullen and English pleaded guilty in February 2022 after Choy bribed them with cash, casino trips, hotel rooms, dinners and other gifts to manage legislation to benefit his companies’ bottom lines.
Cullen and English’s betrayal of their public offices and the ongoing federal investigation has tarnished the state Legislature.
Current lawmakers in both chambers publicly declared ahead of the Jan. 20 start of the 2026 session that they didn’t take the money and don’t know who did.
Those declarations came after retired Federal Public Defender Alexander Silvert petitioned state lawmakers in the first week of January to convene a committee with subpoena and contempt powers to investigate the matter involving the unnamed lawmaker and donors.
Silvert mailed the petition and letters to House Speaker Nadine Nakamura, Senate President Ron Kouchi and every state legislator individually. The petition had over 929 verified Hawaii signatures.
During the fallout from the English-Cullen scandal in 2022, Luke had told the Star-Advertiser, “I am meticulous about reporting (campaign contributions,) as I believe the public has a right to know who is contributing. Contributions should not affect policy decisions. My policy decisions are based on what is best for the taxpayers of our state.”