By Alfred Acenas
EBC Hawaii Bureau
HONOLULU (Eagle News) – The U.S. Government announced on Thursday, July 16, that Michael J. Miske, Jr. and ten other people are being charged with at least 22 counts of racketeering conspiracy and other offenses. The indictment includes charges against Miske for his role in the kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old Johnathan Fraser in July 2016.
A prior indictment, which charged Miske and another defendant with participation in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, was also announced.
Miske and seven of the defendants were arrested on Wednesday, July 15. Two of the defendants, Lance Bermudez and Dae Han Moon, are already in state custody. One defendant remains at large.
As far back as the late 1990s, the defendants conspired to participate in what was known as the “Miske Enterprise” through a pattern of racketeering activities. They included acts involving murder, kidnapping, arson, and robbery. They also included acts relating to murder-for-hire, chemical weapons, extortionate credit transactions, racketeering, interference with commerce through robbery and extortion, drug trafficking, wire fraud, fraud in connection with identification documents, financial institution fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Roughly between March and July 2016, Miske conspired with others to kidnap and murder 21-year-old Johnathan Fraser. In March 2016, Miske instructed a co-conspirator to develop a plan for kidnapping and murdering Fraser, and told that co-conspirator that he/she could name the price for carrying out the murder.
On or about June 2016, Miske arranged for the purchase of a Boston whaler vessel that could be used to dump Fraser’s body into the ocean after Fraser was kidnapped and killed.
Around July 30, Fraser was kidnapped and killed. On that same day, another of Miske’s co-conspirators took Fraser’a significant other on a “spa day,” thereby ensuring that Fraser and his significant other would be separated from each other when Fraser was kidnapped.
The 46-year old Miske, associates of the “Miske Enterprise,” and possibly others have since participated in various other offenses to include (but not limited to) the following:
- On or about March 2017, Miske and his associates conspired to release a chemical weapon, namely, chloropicrin, into nightclubs in Honolulu. As part of this conspiracy, chloropicrin was released into two different nightclubs.
- Roughly between April and July 2017, Miske and others participated in a scheme to defraud the Bank of Hawaii through the preparation and submission of materially false documents as part of loan applications.
Federal agencies involved in the years-long investigation included the Honolulu Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Seattle Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigative Division (EPA-CID); Honolulu Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); and Seattle Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
In a telephonic pretrial hearing, Miske pleaded “not guilty” to 17 of the felony charges, including murder-for-hire.
His trial been set for September, and the case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson.
(Eagle News Service)