A Honolulu prosecutor’s office investigator who was put on leave while he was investigated for obstructing his own domestic violence case has been reinstated under circumstances legal experts are calling absurd. 

Last year, investigator Christopher Moon’s then-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence — specifically head-butting her in the face — and he was arrested. The woman recanted her complaint a few days later and, as a result, the Attorney General’s Office declined to charge Moon with abuse.

But months later, the woman told Moon’s supervisor that Moon had forced her to withdraw her complaint and even impersonated his chief to manipulate her. In text messages pretending to be his chief, the investigator raised the prospect that his partner could lose custody of her child, investigative files show.

Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm’s office launched an administrative investigation into its employee, Moon, for allegedly obstructing his own case and witness tampering, among other claims. But before the office approached Moon with its findings, the office abruptly dropped the matter, and Moon — who had been on paid leave for five months — was brought back to work.

Officials determined that they didn’t have copies of the office’s standards of conduct policies signed by the employee, a final investigation report states. And the employee’s union — the Hawaii Government Employees Association, or HGEA — was signaling it would make that an issue if the office proceeded, according to special counsel Christine Denton, who led the administrative investigation. 

Without proof Moon had previously pledged to behave legally and professionally, the investigation was closed. Moon was never interviewed about the allegations, and the case was labeled “unsubstantiated.” 

“We tried our best to ensure that we were mindful of due process towards the employee,” Denton told Civil Beat, “as well as making sure that we were trying to conduct a fair investigation for everyone.”

In an interview with Civil Beat, Moon denied all of the allegations against him and said he was “not the abuser” in the relationship, which ended late last year. In fact, he said he was the one abused by his ex.

“Anybody who knows me personally knows I’m not this person that this is making me out to be,” he said during an interview that at times turned tearful. “These things are either completely false or twisted out of context.” 

Denton added that there were doubts about the complainant’s credibility, adding that the woman stopped communicating with the office. Text messages in the investigative file show the woman did put off a meeting at first but later made multiple attempts to schedule one, and the prosecutor’s office did not respond.

“She did not come forward when we needed her to come forward, and then went back and forth, which, unfortunately, makes her credibility doubtful,” Denton said, adding that an arbitrator, who often makes final decisions on employee discipline, may look unfavorably on that.

No one from the prosecutor’s office ever met with the woman in person. 

Multiple local legal experts who reviewed the case closure records at Civil Beat’s request say the matter was mishandled. By Alm’s office prematurely ending the probe, they said, the agency overlooked potentially criminal conduct by its own employee. 

“Had this been any other defendant who had charges of domestic violence filed against him and then tried to tamper with a witness or intimidate a witness, they’d be locked up,” said Ken Lawson, who teaches criminal law at the University of Hawaiʻi. “Shame on them.” 

Obstructing justice and witness tampering are crimes that should’ve been investigated not by Moon’s employer but by an impartial party, such as the Hawaiʻi Attorney General or the U.S. Attorney’s office, according to Ali Silvert, a former federal public defender. The federal government could have jurisdiction since the alleged tampering involved electronic communications, he said.

But neither of those offices were contacted.

“They’re in the business of investigating crimes. So they know one when they see one,” he said of the Honolulu prosecutor’s office. “It shouldn’t have been so easily dismissed.”

The case contrasts with a separate personnel investigation involving another Honolulu prosecutor’s office investigator that concluded this year.

That investigator, Brandon Kaaa-Swain, was on paid leave for nearly five years as a prosecutor’s office investigation into his mileage reimbursements dragged on. He was terminated three weeks after Civil Beat reported on his case. 

Calls To 911, Then Case Closed 

The Honolulu prosecutor’s office disclosed Moon’s investigative case file in response to a Civil Beat public records request.

The records, totaling more than 100 pages, redacted the names of the investigator and his now ex-girlfriend. However, Civil Beat was able to identify Moon, who has been an Investigator III for the prosecutor’s office since 2019, court records show. 

Sometime in 2023, Moon started a relationship with the complainant. And it didn’t take long for things to turn tumultuous. The police responded to the couple’s fights a dozen times between November 2023 and February 2025, the records show. 

Most of the police visits were logged as verbal altercations without reported injuries, according to the police reports, but the fight on May 30, 2024 was especially bad. Multiple neighbors called 911 after hearing a woman screaming for help, according to the police report, and officers found her with a swollen lip. 

She told officers Moon had head-butted her in the mouth. Moon told officers his girlfriend was “losing her mind again,” the report states. 

HPD officers took the woman across the street and tried to talk to her. She was crying and reluctant to speak. She told officers that “nothing would be done” because of her partner’s job at the prosecutor’s office, the police report states. 

“She also related that due to his job title, she’s been covering up in the past, when dealing with police officers who respond to their residence,” according to the report. 

At the same time, the woman contradicted herself and told police there were no prior instances of abuse. 

Even though the woman told police she did not want to prosecute the case, Moon was arrested and booked. And when the charges landed at the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, they were referred to the Hawaiʻi attorney general to avoid a conflict of interest. 

The next day, the woman texted Moon’s boss, supervisory investigator Joseph Bonin, to walk back her claims. 

“I hope he’s not (in) trouble,” she wrote. “I never pressed charges it was just a fight.” 

Days later, on June 6, the woman filed a form with the AG’s office withdrawing her complaint and stating she would not testify in the case. By signing, she agreed that she had not been coerced or threatened by anyone in making that decision.

The woman texted Moon’s boss, Bonin, a copy of the form. She wrote that she had talked to a deputy attorney general about her boyfriend “not doing said crime and I blurted it out of being intoxicated and thinking he was trying to get me arrested,” the text messages show. 

She apologized to the supervisor for the inconvenience this had caused her partner and the “whole Department.” 

However, months later, in February 2025, the woman started posting about Moon in a Facebook group called “Are We Dating The Same Guy?” The group is intended as a place for women to warn each other about problems they’ve encountered with men they’ve dated.

That same month, the woman texted Bonin again. This time, she said, Moon “needs to be exposed.”  

‘Need Major Damage Control Now’ 

The woman sent Bonin a screenshot of an exchange, ostensibly between Moon and the prosecutor’s office chief of investigations. The text thread appears to depict the chief comforting Moon and suggests his girlfriend should perhaps lose custody of her child. 

“We all know you,” the supposed supervisor says. “And we know how much you love her, but you have to protect yourself. I can’t stand by as your chief and watch her destroy you. I know you don’t want to pursue anything against her, but she may give you no choice. Right now it’s just words, and we know it’s bullshit because I haven’t heard anything from her as she says, but these are serious threats she is making to hurt you. If it goes any further, I’ll have no choice but to contact child services myself. With what you have, it displays serious mental illness and that (her child) is being endangered.” 

“Please don’t do that sir,” Moon responds in the exchange. “I’ll see what I can do to talk to her and get her to get help. She did say she’d stop drinking… If she does or she just leaves peacefully, I ask that you please just let it go.” 

“We know how much you have wanted to protect her,” the supposed chief says, “but it will be out of your hands if it does any further.” 

But the chief never said those things, according to the woman. Moon had forged the messages, she told Bonin, and Moon had admitted it to her. 

“That was for me to follow his orders of not pressing charges,” she said. 

In a meeting with Civil Beat at a coffee shop, Moon acknowledged that the supposed exchange with his chief was fake.

He said it’s “not what it looks like” but declined to explain why he sent it. He alleged it was sent after the domestic violence case was already closed but declined to provide proof of that. 

“I did not impersonate anybody,” he said. “None of what is shown is substantiated or in correct context.” 

The woman shared additional screenshots with Bonin, allegedly showing Moon asking her to email his chief an apology. 

“Just a brief one apologizing, very brief explanation and then saying you hope I can be reinstated soon,” the text states. “Also, please express to him that you know I would never do anything to physically hurt you or (redacted). That’s important. Need major damage control now.” 

Moon told Civil Beat those messages too were taken out of context, but he wouldn’t provide that context.

The woman noted that Moon wasn’t even supposed to be in contact with her during this time. After his arrest, police ordered him to stay away until June 4 in accordance with a state domestic violence law.

Moon acknowledged to Civil Beat that the couple was in touch during that period but said it was his ex who broke the no-contact rule. 

“She was actually asking me what to do,” Moon said. 

In her texts with Bonin, the woman added that her ex spends work hours sleeping and reaching out to someone else to do his work for him. Moon is a boxing coach and dog trainer. 

Moon told Civil Beat those charges were “completely false.” The issue did become part of the prosecutor’s office investigation but the resulting report says that a review of Moon’s assignments and mileage logs did not reveal any violations.

Witness And Accused Never Interviewed 

Investigator Cedric Lee was assigned alongside Denton to look into the woman’s allegations. But he quickly lost her trust when he contacted her minor child’s phone instead of the mother’s, text messages between them show, and he then didn’t respond to several of her text messages trying to arrange a meeting. 

The woman was told someone from the administration would contact her, but it’s unclear from the records if anyone did. A face-to-face meeting with the woman was never conducted, the report says. 

Denton said the woman was afraid because the office couldn’t guarantee her protection, and she declined to provide a written statement. 

Without the woman’s cooperation, Denton said the prosecutor’s office couldn’t prove the validity of the text messages she shared. Unlike a criminal investigation in which prosecutors have subpoena power, she said in personnel investigations, they do not. 

Meanwhile, HGEA was asking which policy Moon had violated, Denton said. The office was concerned the lack of policy paperwork would cut against it if any resulting discipline went to arbitration. 

In an email, HGEA spokesman Malulani Moreno declined to discuss the case, saying, “The union doesn’t control how departments conduct their investigations.”

On June 3, Denton informed the woman that her participation was no longer necessary and that if she felt unsafe, she should call 911. 

While Alm’s office referred the original abuse case to the AG to avoid a conflict of interest, Denton said she did not refer the obstruction or witness tampering claims to outside agencies for potential criminal prosecution.

The prosecutor’s office was unable to meet the relatively low standard of proof required in an employee misconduct case: the preponderance of the evidence. 

“If we couldn’t even meet that burden, we would not be able to meet the beyond a reasonable doubt burden – not we, but any prosecution,” Denton said, referring to the proof needed for a criminal conviction. “So we didn’t refer that out.” 

Plus, the case came to the prosecutor’s office after the complaining witness had posted about Moon on Facebook. It came in as an administrative matter, she said, so that’s how the office interpreted it — not as a criminal matter.  

“We looked at it as an employment case because that was how it was brought to our office,” she said.

Silvert said both of those explanations are inappropriate. 

“First, it doesn’t matter how it came into the office if it turns out in their investigation that a crime was committed,” he said.

And because there was a conflict of interest, it wasn’t the Honolulu prosecutor’s job to measure the facts against any standard of proof. Once a crime has been identified involving the office’s own employee, Silvert said the prosecutor’s sole duty was to turn it over to the AG to do an independent investigation. 

The fact that they didn’t, he said, was unprofessional and irresponsible. 

Silvert said it’s not too late for the attorney general or U.S. Attorney’s Office to pick up the case. They would have subpoena power to obtain the phone records, he said, and wouldn’t necessarily need the complaining witness’s cooperation. 

Investigator’s Credibility May Be Questioned

Multiple legal experts interviewed by Civil Beat characterized the prosecutor’s office handling of the case as absurd. The case did not need to be dismissed just because they didn’t have evidence Moon had signed some forms, they said. 

Generally, government employers use a seven-part “just cause” checklist when considering employee discipline, said Hilo employment attorney Ted Hong. The first question on the checklist is about fair notice, asking essentially: Was the employee informed of the policy they’re accused of breaking? 

The prosecutor’s memo notes the most relevant office policies in this case are the Standards of Conduct prohibiting “acts of misconduct, corruption or bribery” and the Investigator Conduct Policy. 

“Investigators shall not violate any law or any department policy, rule or procedure,” the policy states. “Investigators shall not engage in any conduct or activities, on or off duty, which brings discredit to the Investigator, tend to bring the department into disrepute, or impairs its efficient and effective operation.”

However, obstruction of justice and witness tampering are crimes. Employers don’t have to preemptively advise their workers not to break the law, the legal experts said. 

“So if the alleged employee committed murder, according to the ‘special counsel’ if there was no internal policy about NOT committing murder, the employer could not terminate or discipline him or her?” Hong said in an email after reviewing the case file. 

“And if the argument is that this is not murder, only a possible criminal violation, then where is the line drawn?” 

The situation also raises questions about how well cases Moon touches as a prosecutor’s office investigator will hold up in court going forward. 

By law, prosecutors are required to give defense attorneys any material that calls into question the credibility of a law enforcement officer who may testify in a case. So-called Brady or Giglio disclosures, named after the Supreme Court cases that established them, are meant to ensure a fair trial.

Now that Moon’s credibility has been called into question, Denton said the prosecutor’s office will have to tell defense attorneys that he was previously accused of witness tampering. Defense attorneys could then use that information to cross examine Moon in court in the hopes of weakening the prosecution’s future cases.

Moon is not a witness in any current cases, according to Denton.

“We are very mindful of the problems that are presented,” Denton said, “if he were to be called to testify in a case.”

Civil Beat’s reporting on women’s and girls’ issues is funded in part by the Frost Family Foundation.