Feds say Hawaii crime lord committed suicide to stop Uncle Sam from seizing $20 million fortune

Hawaii nightclub owner Michael Miske Jr. was convicted of murder and numerous other charges, and a jury said he should forfeit more than $20 million to Uncle Sam as part of his punishment.

But Miske died of a fentanyl overdose before he could be convicted, which would usually throw out the case — except the government now says it has evidence that Miske intentionally overdosed. The federal government has said it cannot be allowed to use its own death to stop the government from getting the money it believes it is owed.

Matthew Cavedon, manager of the Cato Institute’s criminal justice project, said he has been tracking forfeiture cases for years and has never seen anything like Miske’s case.

“The dead can rest in peace, but often not the property,” he said.

Prosecutors said Miske was responsible for a reign of terror in Hawaii, including paying to have a pesticide dumped on dancers at rival nightclubs and orchestrating the kidnapping and murder of a man he held responsible for his son’s death.

After a 99-day trial, a jury convicted him of more than a dozen charges in July 2024. The jury later ordered his property forfeited.

He was scheduled to be sentenced on January 30, 2025, but died of an overdose two months before that court date.

U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson, who is seeking the $20 million, said people like Miske cannot be allowed to “dictate the fate of their ill-gotten wealth.”

“Our criminal prosecution of Michael Miske demonstrated that he was a thug who used theft, felonious assault, drug trafficking, fraud, chemical weapons attacks on his competitors, murder and criminal obstruction to terrorize and intimidate Hawaii for many years,” he said.

Government lawyers said Miske arranged with a former inmate to smuggle fentanyl into the prison in exchange for a car. The man intentionally violated the conditions of his release and was remanded to the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu.

Prosecutors said in court documents that investigators found “an individual” last year who detailed the plot, saying Miske took smaller amounts of fentanyl in the days before his death to make it appear he was a regular drug user, which he said would make his overdose more plausible as an accident.

Mr. Cavedon, however, said prolonged fentanyl use could also backfire by suggesting Miske had become a user who unwittingly went too far.

In the criminal world, dying before sentencing nullifies the charges, and dying before sentencing nullifies the punishment. In Miske’s case, it erased the jury’s decision to forfeit the $20 million in cash and property.

But last year, the government responded with a civil forfeiture case, in which the property itself serves as a defendant and there is no presumption of innocence that the government must overcome.

“Land confiscation is one place where normal rules don’t work,” Mr Cavedon said. “There is something remarkable about the fact that this case is moving forward and [Miske is] not here to defend yourself.

The government says the incentive to protect his money was so great that Miske was willing to kill himself.

But Mr Cavedon said incentives from the government itself are also suspect: “You have a government that is so desperate to get its hands on this money that they are prepared to take this action after they die. »

If Miske were still alive, he could refute accusations of intentionality. But of course he’s dead, which makes the matter even more complicated.

Edward Michael Burch, a lawyer representing the trust, said the Justice Department’s new theory of intentional suicide is “new and fundamentally flawed” legally.

He said Miske’s business empire has generated a lot of legal profit and that the government is trying to “deprive an innocent nine-year-old child, who lost her father, her grandfather and, in fact, her mother, of her means to live without financial hardship.”

“We hope to prevent the government from holding a child responsible for the alleged sins of others,” the attorney said in a statement.

Among the assets sought by the federal government are several boats, works of art, a 2017 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, four vintage Volkswagens, a 1970 Ford Bronco and bank accounts.

After his conviction but before his death, Miske transferred all of his assets into an existing trust and withdrew others to make the sole beneficiary his granddaughter, the daughter of Miske’s son Caleb, who was killed in a car crash in 2016. That was the accident prosecutors say Miske sought revenge for in the murder-for-hire.