Falsely arrested by their own Department?  Four Sheriff Deputies File Suit

by Andrew Walden

Arguing they were falsely arrested by their own department, four Hawaii State Sheriff Deputies filed suit in Oahu’s First Circuit Court Tuesday, October 14, 2025.

Interviewed in September by Hawai’i Free Press, Attorney Megan Kau, who represents  the four deputies, explains: “(Former top DLE officials) Jordan Lowe and Wayne Ibarra failed follow protocol, failed to adhere to constitutional rights and violated many people's rights and they're going to have to pay for it.  The state is going to have to pay for their mistakes.”

Kau’s clients had been arrested in June, 2024, over charges of racial and sexual harassment.  They were placed on paid leave and ‘Restriction of Police Authority’ (ROPA) until reinstated by new DLE Director Mike Lambert, in July, 2025. Other deputies remain on paid leave over a separate use-of force complaint regarding a homeless person at a 7/11 near the legislature.

One suspended Deputy, Jordan J Kagehiro, committed suicide August 29, 2024.

In the complaint, Kau calls the arrests “unlawful.”  She argues:

“Jordan Lowe and Wayne Ibarra had an ulterior purpose in arresting Plaintiffs and therefore failed to complete a thorough investigation, obtain sufficient evidence, and establish probable cause that a crime had been committed before arbitrarily and wrongfully arresting the plaintiffs.”

In a stunning role-reversal, much of the information in Kau’s lawsuit comes from a seperate suit, filed July 28, 2025, by the deputy who originally complained about her four clients.

In his suit, Deputy Martin Horton alleged Ibarra trumped-up the charges against the four deputies as part of a convoluted scheme to manipulate Horton as a ‘pawn’ to retaliate against the number three man in the State Sheriff Division, First Deputy Lanikoa Dobrowolsky.

Dobrowolsky had filed his own suit against DLE in June, 2024.

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PDF: Gary v Hawaii October 14, 2025

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