Tam gets
supervised release

The Ewa Villages
suspect will be freed in
his mom's custody

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Norman Tam, the last of eight suspects indicted in the Ewa Villages fraud trial, was granted supervised release into the custody of his mother by Circuit Judge Frances Wong this morning.

Tam, 54, was to be released from Oahu Community Correctional Center, possibly as soon as tonight.

Tam is charged with 34 counts of theft, forgery, money laundering, bribery and related charges.

Mark Zenger, Tam's attorney, described his client as no more than a "foot soldier" who was caught in the middle of the complicated bilking scheme involving relocation funds from the city's Ewa Villages revitalization project.

"Someone, and we don't know who yet, ordered Mr. Tam to work with Mr. Kahapea," Zenger told reporters after the hearing.

Co-defendants Michael Kahapea, Claude Hebaru and Russell J. Williams are out on supervised release, while the four suspects have made bail.

Zenger said that in one particular case involving the moving of Oahu Sugar equipment, neither Tam's name nor signature appeared on key documents.

Prosecutors argued that Tam's signature was not needed on those documents. "They haven't shown us anything yet," Zenger said.

He questioned how much of the $5.5 million reportedly bilked in the case went to Tam.

Police Lt. Daniel Hanagami, the lead detective in the case, said he did not know precisely how much Tam took, but noted that the former city fair housing officer has yet to explain some $62,000 in deposits over four years that were not tied to employment. "Over a period of four to five years, that doesn't appear to be a tremendous amount," Zenger said. Prosecutors argued that because so much of the funds are still unaccounted for, Tam and other Ewa Villages defendants are flight risks.

As conditions of his supervised release, Tam must stay at the home of his mother and be subject to electronic monitoring, a night curfew and travel restrictions.

Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Young, in court documents arguing against Tam's release, had said Tam was supposed to ensure bids were in order and pay moving companies only after relocation work was done.

"Because of ... Tam's knowledge of city procedures, he was able to mislead other city employees to believe that commercial tenants had been relocated from Ewa Villages" when often they had not, Young wrote. Tam, Young said, "also manipulated the city process by submitting fraudulent bid lists and documents as part of the payment request forms."

Zenger, in court documents, had said Tam is not a flight risk. A lifelong resident of Oahu, he has children and other family here.

He is also too weak to leave, having suffered a near-fatal heart ailment in 1995, Zenger said.