ʻForfeiture is another aspect of punishmentʻ: Prosecutor

HONOLULU (KHON2) — The jury has reached a decision on how much cash and property convicted murder and racketeering crime boss Michael Miske will lose.

The jury was handed phase two of his trial after just two days.

During phase two, jury instructions listed 16 items from multimillion-dollar homes to exotic cars, cash from numerous bank accounts and an art collection with pieces such as a sculpture called “Uzi Does It,” which is named after a machine gun.

During Wednesday’s session, the jury found that Miske’s Portlock and Kailua homes, multiple vessels and millions of dollars in bank funds were acquired or maintained in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1962.

The government will reclaim Miske’s Portlock and Hawaii Kai properties, two fishing vessels, as well as more than $3 million in funds seized by the Bank of Hawaii.

All items were found to be “obtained directly or indirectly from racketeering activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1962.

Phase one took more than 100 days of trial to convict Miske on 13 counts including “murder in aid of racketeering,” “conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering” and several other racketeering and conspiracy-related counts.

“When you run a criminal organization and you have proceeds from your criminal enterprise and you use facilitating property to help you commit your crimes, all of that is subject to forfeiture. Forfeiture is another aspect of punishment and in this case the jury demonstrated not only that they were going to convict him for being a racketeer but also take all of the fruits, instrumentalities and proceeds from that criminal activity,” the Assistant U.S. Attorney, Ken Sorenson, said after Wednesdayʻs proceedings.

Miske’s sentencing is scheduled to take place in four months.