A former Hawaiʻi defense contractor was sentenced Monday in Washington, D.C., to 33 months in prison for orchestrating a scheme that sent more than $200,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and a super PAC that backed her 2020 bid for reelection. 

Martin Kao was the president and CEO of Navatek LLC, a Hawaiʻi-based engineering firm that received contracts from the U.S. Defense Department and had a satellite office in Collins’ home state of Maine. Kao’s illegal donations to Collins and the super PAC were made shortly after Navatek won an $8 million contract that Collins secured funding for and celebrated alongside company executives during an August 2019 ceremony. 

Prosecutors for the U.S. Justice Department said in court records that the contributions to Collins, who they described only as Candidate A, were meant to gain political favor.

During Monday’s hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols described Kao’s actions as “serious,” and said that he suspects there are many more cases like his that go undetected. For that reason, Nichols said it was important to impose a punishment that not only suited Kao’s crimes, but could also act as a deterrent. 

Kao appeared in court via teleconference from a federal prison in Oregon where he’s already serving an 87-month sentence that was handed down in the U.S. District Court of Hawaiʻi for bank fraud and crimes associated with bilking a Covid-19 relief program out of nearly $13 million. Kao was ordered to pay more than $12.8 million in restitution as a part of his sentence and perform 12,800 hours of community service.

He’s also the target of ongoing civil litigation in which his former business parters want to hold him financially liable for his crimes. That case has revealed sordid details about the way in which Kao and others attempted to influence politicians through their giving.

Nichols said that Kao will be allowed to serve his sentence in the illegal campaign contribution case at the same time he does time for his other crimes, which means he will not have to spend any additional time behind bars.  

Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Gold wrote in a sentencing memo last week that the DOJ supported letting Kao serve his sentences at the same time. Gold said that Kao had “accepted responsibility” and was “open about his role in the conduit contribution scheme.”

Kao’s punishment, he said, “provides general deterrence to future federal contractors and donors, who are once again served notice that the Government will criminally prosecute those who violate their campaign finance laws.”

Kao’s federal public defender, Michelle Peterson, asked for leniency for her client, describing him in a pre-sentencing memo as a “humbled and changed man.” Since being charged, Kao has been ousted from Navatek, which is now named PacMar Technologies. While awaiting sentencing, he has worked as a line cook at the Cheesecake Factory and attended classes at Harvard. 

Peterson said Kao also spent several days cooperating with government investigators about the “conduit contribution scheme as well as other aspects of the pay-to-play scheme that pervaded Navatek and Capitol Hill.” 

“Despite getting no personal benefit,” Peterson said, “it was important to him to come fully clean about his role in a pervasively corrupt system that crossed party lines and went very far up the political system and business community.”

Peterson did not provide specifics about the information Kao provided or whether it resulted in any further investigation. She similarly declined to comment on the case Monday.

Kao was indicted in 2022 along with two former Navatek executives, Lawrence Lum Kee and Clifford Chen, for giving company money to family members to make straw donations to Collins’ campaign in violation of federal law. They also set up a shell company — called the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers LLC — to funnel $150,000 in Navatek funds to a super PAC supporting Collins’ bid for reelection. 

Many of the details contained in the indictment followed along with those laid out in a 2020 Civil Beat investigation into Kao and others’ donations to Collins. 

Kao pleaded guilty in 2022, just seven months after being indicted. Lum Kee and Chen pleaded guilty in 2023 and were sentenced to 12 months of probation. 

In a previous statement to Civil Beat, a spokesperson for Collins said that the senator’s campaign cooperated fully with the DOJ investigation and “divested itself of all the contributions associated with Mr. Kao and his associates.” 

Collins is currently running for reelection in 2026 and already faces a challenge from Janet Mills, a two-term Democratic governor.