Law fare: The weird lawsuit against Maui Police Chief John Pelletier and his co-defendants — convicted rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, comedian Druski, football star Odell Beckham Jr. plus at least eight others — just took a turn for the weirder.

Last week the two attorneys representing a woman named Ashley Parham and two people known only as John and Jane Doe pulled out of the case. As in withdrew. Leaving their clients to either represent themselves or scramble to find new lawyers.

This after the federal judge in California, where the case has been plodding along the last seven months, has indicated she may impose sanctions against the attorneys — Ariel Mitchell and Shawn Perez — because they continue to refuse to drop the claims against several defendants, including Druski and Beckham, who have submitted solid evidence they were nowhere near the alleged rape and kidnapping of Parham and the Does that supposedly took place in 2018. Pelletier also has provided evidence that he was not involved, as has Jacquelyn “Jaguar” Wright, who produced paperwork showing she was actually in prison when the alleged sexual assault occurred.

Druski and Beckham have filed motions for sanctions that contend they have each spent more than $50,000 on legal fees in this case. And they want their money back.

Pelletier’s alleged involvement — that he kidnapped the Does in Las Vegas and drove them to the house in Northern California where Parham was supposedly being assaulted — is based on the Does apparently producing a picture of Pelletier from when he was a Las Vegas cop that Parham and the Does used to identify him as the kidnapper and an enforcer for Combs.

The Blog has asked Perez and Mitchell for more info on how the Does came up with Pelletier and his photo but has not been able to get a response. The Does have also never been publicly identified.

Pelletier insists he does not know Combs and produced bank and phone records to show he was in Vegas at the time they say he was in California. The lawsuit also alleges he posed as a Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy who responded to Parham’s calls for help after she escaped from the house where she said she was assaulted.

Anyway, the federal judge has given Parham and the Does until the end of the month to decide how they are going to proceed. She also left the possibility of sanctions on the table so any new attorney would be facing that as well.

“We don’t know why both Plaintiffs attorneys withdrew from the case but I see it as yet another sign that the case has no merit and will be dismissed before it even begins,” Pelletier’s attorney, Keola Whittaker, told The Blog in an email.

Pelletier adds: “The plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in March, but they never served me because they had nothing to stand on. Now even their own attorneys have walked away. This was never a real case, just reckless accusations that fell apart the moment they got tested by actual facts.”

Besides possibly being on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in sanctions for dragging the defendants in this case through an expensive wringer, Mitchell is facing disciplinary proceedings in Florida relating to dishonesty and allegations of witness tampering in a high-profile complaint she brought against a celebrity a few years ago, according to a complaint filed in July by the Florida Bar with the Florida Supreme Court.

New sheriff in town: And speaking of police matters, former three-time police chief Chris Magnus was given a unanimous thumbs up by the Honolulu City Council last week to become the newest member of the Honolulu Police Commission. Magnus is Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s pick to replace outgoing commissioner Doug Chin.

The Mānoa resident was put forward by Blangiardi in August and initially met some resistance by council members who questioned the fact that he wasn’t local (he moved here two years ago after retiring) and thus couldn’t possibly understand Hawaiʻi culture and police issues. Others raised concerns over an unsuccessful lawsuit filed by Black officers in California as well as his short tenure as the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol chief under President Joe Biden.

Magnus has spent the last several weeks meeting one-on-one with City Council members who gave him a glowing green light on Wednesday.

Magnus comes across as a friendly and low-key kind of guy. But The Blog is hoping he puts his deep knowledge of the police business to good use and asks way tougher and more relevant questions of the current Honolulu police administration than his fellow commissioners have been doing.

Blangiardi still has one more opening on the seven-member commission to fill, replacing Carrie Okinaga, who skedaddled as soon as former police chief Joe Logan resigned and it became apparent another long process to hire a new chief lay ahead.

The commission is predicting the city will have a new top cop by next summer.

DC 808 Shutdown, First Edition: The federal government shutdown that began Wednesday is headed into next week — at least — because the Senate can’t pass a funding bill and the House can’t find its way back to Washington, D.C.

Democrats are pointing to looming increases in Obamacare insurance premiums unless they can pass their version of a funding bill instead of the Republican one. Hawaiʻi Sen. Brian Schatz is among those sharing comparisons of current and future insurance premiums on his X account that purport to show massive price hike estimates people already are receiving in some states, like this one from Virginia Sen. Mark Warner:

Next year, a lot of folks are going to see their premiums go up $1,000 or more per month because of a Republican policy.

If you start having to pay $1,000 extra every month, what will you stop being able to afford?

This is what Democrats are fighting to stop. pic.twitter.com/S3FF51yFv8

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) October 3, 2025

Republicans are saying they just want a “clean” bill that puts off thorny issues like maintaining the Covid-era Obamacare stipends that have kept premiums down. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is implying a shutdown is the perfect time to further downsize the government.

The Blog figures there’s likely to be plenty of time for politicians of all stripes to explain why their opponents are out to ruin America before the shutdown ends. But House members have to do this from afar — Speaker Mike Johnson announced Friday he’s keeping his colleagues on the sidelines because they already did their duty by passing the GOP version of the funding bill.

The House chambers have been empty a lot lately, something Schatz noted on X with his finely honed social media sarcasm: “To be fair – the House did come back for a week after their six week break and before their two week break which was followed by an additional week.”

There’s irony here as well: Members of the House continue to get paid while not working, but many other federal employees continue to work without getting paid.

Every member of the Hawaiʻi congressional delegation is encouraging constituents to contact his or her office with their shutdown concerns or questions.

Changing of the guard Part 1: Luis Salaveria, the director of the Department of Budget and Finance under Gov. Josh Green, is stepping down Oct. 31. No reason was given for his departure in a press release.

Salaveria previously served in the Ige administration as the director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and in the Abercrombie administration as deputy director of Budget and Finance. He has also worked as a lobbyist.

Green credited Salaveria with helping Hawaiʻi “during this challenging economic environment,” notably the Maui wildfire recovery efforts.

Deputy Finance Director Sabrina Nasir will take over as acting director effective Nov. 1. She previously served as budget chief for the Senate Ways and Means Committee under former Sen. Jill Tokuda.

Nasir is an Omidyar Fellow, a leadership program launched by the Hawai‘i Leadership Forum in 2012 named after Pierre Omidyar, the publisher of Honolulu Civil Beat.

Changing of the guard Part 2: Sabrina McKenna, an associate justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, is now the acting chief justice following the mandatory retirement of Mark Recktenwald last month. She could be holding down the bench for some time, as the Judicial Selection Commission struggles to attract enough applicants to be the new CJ.

The vacancy was first announced Nov. 20, 2024, and then extended in March. The deadline to apply has now been re-extended to Nov. 3. because of an “insufficient number of applications for this important position,” according to the commission.

The Judicial Selection Commission is required by the Hawaiʻi Constitution to provide a list of “not less than four, and not more than six” nominees to the governor. The eventual nominee then needs state Senate confirmation.

The Blog hears that besides McKenna, Justice Vlad Devins and former U.S. Attorney Clare Connors have expressed interest. Other high court members, Todd Eddins and Lisa Ginoza, have reportedly decided not to apply.

Eddins “has emerged as one of the judiciary’s most astute and merciless critics” of the U.S. Supreme Court, Slate reported last month.

EWC safe for now: Funding cuts under the Trump administration have threatened the survival of the East-West Center in Honolulu, which promotes better relations and understanding in the region through study, research and dialogue. It’s not clear how the ongoing shutdown of the federal government will impact the center, but The Blog can report that a recent move to abolish it altogether is dead.

Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican and combat veteran representing the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, introduced an amendment last month that stated, simply, “The East-West Center is hereby abolished.”

No reason was given, and an inquiry to Perry’s office by The Blog was unsuccessful.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case told The Blog via email that the amendment was a last-minute addition to the State Department Reauthorization Act, which was coming up for amendment and a final vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“At first it was an abolishment amendment but then he amended it to one to phase out funding over time. We worked with the East-West Center and the other affected institutions on a strategy to defeat it,” said Case, who worked with his Pacific colleagues to alert every member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“I also personally talked with several members of the Committee, especially majority Republicans including Chair (Brian) Mast, to reinforce our objections to the amendment particularly on national security grounds. We gained commitments of support from enough Republicans so that, together with the Democrats, the Perry amendment didn’t have the votes to pass.”

Perry withdrew the amendment.