{"id":76541,"date":"2026-07-25T08:56:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/25\/hawaiis-democratic-lieutenant-governor-indicted-in-state-corruption-investigation\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T08:56:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:56:47","slug":"hawaiis-democratic-lieutenant-governor-indicted-in-state-corruption-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/25\/hawaiis-democratic-lieutenant-governor-indicted-in-state-corruption-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii’s Democratic lieutenant governor indicted in state corruption investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Hawaii<\/a> Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke was indicted by a grand jury on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery and falsifying candidate committee reports stemming from a bribe she allegedly took as a state lawmaker in 2022.<\/p>\n

The indictment alleges that local businessman and lobbyist<\/a> Tobi Solidum offered Luke a $35,000 bribe connected to a COVID-19 testing contract a company he recommended had with the state.<\/p>\n

Solidum was also indicted as part of the state attorney general\u2019s probe, along with former state representative Ryan Yamane, Hawaii\u2019s Transportation Department official Ford Fuchigami, and Leo Asunci\u00f3n, a former official for Hawaii\u2019s public utilities commission.<\/p>\n

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All five defendants were swept up as part of state Attorney General Anne Lopez\u2019s January investigation, which was an offshoot of a federal bribery probe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Solidum represented the National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii, which had contracts with the state to provide COVID-19 testing sites.<\/p>\n

In January 2022, with his client\u2019s contracts set to expire soon, Solidum met with Luke at a steakhouse and allegedly gave her two $5,000 checks made out to her campaign committee Friends of Sylvia Luke, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

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“By next week, we\u2019ll have 35, so it will be halfway to our 70,” Solidum allegedly told Luke, promising to give her $70,000, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

“Oh wow,” Luke allegedly replied, adding, “That\u2019s terrific,” according to the documents.<\/p>\n

Luke admitted to accepting the two $5,000 checks, but denied taking more than that and also denied any money influencing her lawmaking.<\/p>\n

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“I never granted special favors to a contributor,” she said in a social media post, adding that she “prized integrity and honesty above all throughout her career.”<\/p>\n

The indictment also argues that Solidum appeared to be attempting to leverage Luke’s upcoming run for lieutenant governor. Speaking about Luke to another state representative, Solidum said, “All I gotta do is give her more money now,” the indictment alleges.<\/p>\n

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green called for Luke to resign hours after the indictment.<\/p>\n

“The lieutenant governor needs to consider formally resigning to address this matter and so that the state of Hawai\u02bbi can move forward,” Green told local outlet<\/a> Maui Now on Friday.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital contacted the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s offices for further comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke was indicted by a grand jury on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery and falsifying candidate committee reports stemming from a bribe she allegedly took as a state lawmaker in 2022. The indictment alleges that local businessman and lobbyist Tobi Solidum offered Luke a $35,000 bribe connected … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}