Jury finds alleged crime boss Michael Miske guilty of murder conspiracy in federal racketeering trial

HONOLULU (KHON2) — After more than 100 days of trial, the jury found alleged crime boss Michael Miske guilty on 13 federal counts.

Guilty counts include “murder in aid of racketeering,” “conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering” and several other racketeering and conspiracy-related counts.

Miske was held on 16 counts including conspiracy and racketeering relating to murder, attempted murder, drugs and other offenses.

Miske has already been acquitted by the judge on several other counts and as many as a dozen former co-defendants already reached plea bargains in the case.

Hundreds of witnesses and more than 1,300 exhibits were utilized in the trial, where federal prosecutors called Miske the “epicenter” of a “criminal underworld” with a criminal enterprise that preyed upon society for the better part of two decades.

In addition, government officials spent a considerable amount of time discussing the murder-for-hire plot of Johnathan Fraser, who went missing in July 2017.

In its closing arguments on July 12, Miske’s attorney Michael Kennedy went through the 16 counts, attacking the credibility of the government’s witnesses and blaming Wayne Miller, Miske’s righthand man, for many of the alleged crimes.

Kennedy added that Miske did not order the murder of anyone when it came to Fraser’s disappearance.

Now, after more than 100 days of federal trial, Miske learned his fate after 16 jurors deliberated for five business days.

The verdicts come just one day before a court-imposed deadline for prosecutors to respond to a defense motion for acquittal on all remaining charges, where the defense argues the government’s evidence fails to prove the crimes.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment due to the ongoing investigation.