In a newly unsealed and updated indictment, a federal grand jury in Honolulu added two defendants to the criminal case against Michael J. Miske, Jr., former owner of Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control and the alleged kingpin of a sprawling racketeering conspiracy that spanned two decades.

And in another document filed this week, prosecutors disclosed startling new details tying one of the two additional defendants to the murder of Jonathan Fraser in 2016, including his purchase of a large fish bag to dispose of Fraser’s body at sea.

Then-U.S. Attorney Kenji Price announced the indictment of Mike Miske and alleged co-conspirators at a press conference in July 2020. Yoohyun Jung/Civil Beat/2020

Miske and nine co-defendants were charged last summer with being members or associates of what prosecutors have termed the “Miske Enterprise,” as well as individual crimes committed under its umbrella. A tenth co-defendant was charged with drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering, but was not alleged to have been a member of the racketeering enterprise.

The second superseding indictment, which was filed under seal on July 15 and unsealed last Friday, added a pair of defendants, Delia-Anne Fabro-Miske, 27, who was married to Mike Miske’s late son, Caleb, along with Jason Yokoyama, 35, a business partner with Miske in his M Nightclub and other businesses.

Both are charged with racketeering conspiracy as members or associates of Michael Miske’s criminal organization. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Fabro-Miske is also charged with a single count of bank fraud, along with Mike Miske, for allegedly preparing and submitting “materially false documents” when applying for a Bank of Hawaii loan in 2017. She faces a 30-year maximum sentence on the bank fraud charge.

The second superseding indictment also dropped two defendants who have already pleaded guilty, Hunter Wilson and Norman Akau III. Both are cooperating with prosecutors and are currently awaiting sentencing.

Yokoyama was associated with Miske and his businesses for at least a decade, and prosecutors now describe him as one of Michael Miske’s “most trusted confidants.”

In a memorandum filed in federal court Tuesday, prosecutors allege Yokoyama participated in or facilitated acts of murder, kidnapping, arson, wire fraud, structuring of cash transactions and bank fraud.

In the most startling allegation, prosecutors allege two cooperating witnesses are able to testify Yokoyama “participated in the kidnapping and murder” of Jonathan Fraser on July 30, 2016.

Delia Fabro-Miske is charged with racketeering conspiracy and a single count of bank fraud in connection with her father-in-law Michael Miske’s alleged criminal enterprise. Screenshot

Fraser had been best friends with Caleb Miske, Delia’s husband, and Mike Miske’s only child. Caleb was just 21 when he died in March 2016 as a result of injuries incurred four months earlier when his black 1993 Honda sedan hit a pickup turning across Kaneohe Bay Drive outside Windward City Shopping Center. Miske’s car was estimated to be traveling in excess of 90 mph, according to a subsequent Honolulu Police Department accident report.

Fraser was a passenger in the car at the time of the accident. He was critically injured but survived.

However, Fraser disappeared on July 30, 2016. Miske is charged with directing and financing a plot to kidnap and murder Fraser, motivated at least in part by Miske’s mistaken insistence Fraser had been the driver in the accident, and was therefore responsible for Caleb’s death.

According to a document prosecutors filed in court to support detaining Yokoyama without bail until trial, one cooperating witness says he met with Michael Miske and Yokoyama at a Honolulu restaurant a week before Fraser disappeared, where they discussed final preparations for Fraser’s murder.

Yokoyama allegedly purchased some items to be used in Fraser’s planned murder, including “a large, folded fish bag which he placed in the trunk of Miske’s vehicle.” The cooperating witness understood the fish bag would be used to transport Fraser’s remains before being dumped at sea.

Yokoyama also reportedly said he had purchased a white Sienna van on Craigslist to use to kidnap Fraser and then deliver him to a boat where he was to be killed. After the murder, Yokoyama allegedly asked two of Miske’s other co-defendants, Lance Burmudez and Dae Han Moon, to help by driving the van across the island and then torching it to eliminate the evidence.

According to prosecutors, Burmudez and Moon have admitted to assisting Yokoyama dispose of the van.

Shortly before Fraser’s disappearance, he and his pregnant girlfriend had been invited to share a two-bedroom Hawaii Kai condominium where Delia Fabro-Miske was living. Fraser told a relative prior to his disappearance that the apartment was paid for by Michael Miske, and that he was not supposed to tell anyone about the arrangement.

Prosecutors have alleged in previous court filings that Miske “provided Fraser a place to live where Miske could keep tabs on him in the days leading up to the murder.”

Fraser’s disappearance and alleged murder provided additional impetus to what was already an ongoing investigation of Miske’s involvement in drug trafficking. Perhaps in response to increased law enforcement pressure, the official business registrations of at least six Miske-controlled companies were amended between October 2016 and January 2017 to remove references to Michael Miske as owner or agent, replacing him with Fabro-Miske as agent, member or sole officer.

The companies transferred to Fabro-Miske during this period included Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control, the flagship of the Miske business empire; Kamaaina Plumbing; Hawaii Partners, a licensed used-car dealer which also held title to a $425,000 Boston Whaler Miske had purchased that was allegedly used to dispose of Fraser’s body at sea; and Kamaaina Holdings, which held title to the 90-foot longline fishing vessel “Rachel,” which was sold earlier this year by court order.

The Rachel, tied to a Miske company, was docked at Pier 12 in Honolulu Harbor. Ian Lind

Prosecutors have alleged these and other name changes were done to conceal or obscure Michael Miske’s de facto control of the companies.

Miske’s longtime accountant was charged in June with conspiracy to defraud the government and bank fraud for filing false tax returns for Miske and his companies in order to conceal funds and income from the IRS. She pleaded guilty to the charges two weeks later.

Tricia Castro was accountant and tax preparer for Michael Miske personally, and for various of his companies, beginning in 2009 and ending at the beginning of 2019.

According to Castro’s plea agreement with prosecutors, filed in U.S. District Court on June 18, she also prepared personal tax returns over several years for two co-conspirators identified only by initials DFM and JY.  Those are the initials of Delia Fabro-Miske and Jason Yokoyama.

Castro admitted the tax returns “underreported business income by not reporting all cash sales and failing to include income from larger business projects. In addition, in the corporate returns Miske’s personal living expenses were improperly deducted as business expenses.”

For example, according to Castro’s plea agreement, “portions of an $11.5 million renovation to Miske’s personal residence were expensed as business expenses.”

Castro also admitted that in September 2017, she submitted Miske’s individual tax return “which failed to report business income made from Da Poke Shack,” a food truck. Around the same time, Castro prepared and submitted a tax return for Leverage, Inc., through which Miske operated his M Nightclub, “which failed to report owner distributions.”

Business registration records link both companies to Yokoyama.

Castro is free on $50,000 unsecured bond. She is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

Yokoyama is scheduled to make his initial court appearance before Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter on Thursday morning. The court record does not indicate Fabro-Miske’s current status.

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About the Author

  • Ian Lind
    Ian Lind is an award-winning investigative reporter and columnist who has been blogging daily for more than 20 years. He has also worked as a newsletter publisher, public interest advocate and lobbyist for Common Cause in Hawaii, peace educator, and legislative staffer. Lind is a lifelong resident of the islands. Read his blog here. Opinions are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Civil Beat's views.