Combined Actual and Projected Distribution of Funds Credit: Salina Kanai
Guilty on All Counts
from Environment Hawaii, June 4, 2025
Just before noon today, on their fourth day of deliberation, the 12 jurors for the Department of Justice’s case against Paul Joseph Sulla, Jr., Gary Charles Zamber, and Rajesh P. Budhabhatti reconvened before U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake to deliver their verdict: Guilty on all counts.
The men had each been charged with one county of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and nine counts of honest services wire fraud. Sulla had also been charged with money laundering.
The charges stemmed from affordable housing schemes carried out between 2014 and 2021 with former Hawaiʻi County Office of Housing and Community Development employee Alan Rudo.
Rudo pleaded guilty in 2022 to his part, which included using his position within the office to provide affordable housing agreements and affordable housing credits to companies established, controlled and/or co-owned in some fashion by the other three.
In finding the men guilty, the jury supported the Department of Justice’s argument that they provided Rudo with things of value — money, land, ownership interest — in exchange for his official acts that benefitted all of them.
Sulla is set to be sentenced on October 21, Zamber on October 7, and Budhabhatti on October 8.
For more background, see this month’s story on the trial, “Defendants in Affordable Housing Case Argue It Was ‘Self-Dealing,’ Not Fraud,” as well as the following, which is just a sampling of Environment Hawaiʻi’s extensive coverage of this story over the years:
COVERAGE:
|