pleaded guilty<\/a> in 2022 to one felony count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. <\/p>\nOne deal transferred 212 affordable housing credits to Luna Loa Developments LLC, which was created by businessman Rajesh Budhabhatti, and partly owned by Rudo and attorney Gary Zamber, according to court records. In exchange, Luna Loa was required to develop 106 affordable units. Instead, the company sold some of the excess credits for at least $350,000, without building a single unit.<\/p>\n
Another agreement required an LLC owned by Rudo, Budhabhatti and Zamber \u2014 West View Developments \u2014 to build a total of 52 affordable units after receiving 104 affordable housing credits. The company traded 46 of the housing credits and $14,000 for land in Kailua-Kona, which the company later sold along with two more housing credits for a total of more than $1 million.<\/p>\n
The defendants also failed to build affordable housing on land in Waikoloa that was transferred to an LLC operated by Rudo, attorney Paul Sulla and Zamber to satisfy another unnamed developer\u2019s affordable housing requirements. Instead, the defendants sold the property for $1.5 million. <\/p>\n
All told, FBI investigators found that these three transactions brought in land and excess affordable housing credits worth at least $10.98 million.<\/p>\n
As part of his plea deal, Rudo forfeited his portion of over $2.3 million and 45 affordable housing credits that federal officials recovered as part of the investigation and agreed to a $2.1 million judgment against him. But federal officials were unable to recover more than $483,000 in additional funds, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
\u2018I Really Didn\u2019t Think I Could Do Wrong\u2019<\/p>\n
At Rudo\u2019s sentencing, Otake found that the former county employee was significantly involved in the scheme in his capacity as \u201cthe public servant who was voluntarily, for lack of a better word, corrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Rudo\u2019s significant role, prosecutors asked the judge for leniency when handing down a sentence. Rudo was also the only one of the four co-conspirators to plead guilty and turn state\u2019s witness, testifying against the others at trial in 2025. Prosecutors had also made a mistake when negotiating Rudo\u2019s plea agreement. Both parties stipulated that the total amount lost through the scheme was $1.5 million to $3.5 million \u2014 significantly less than the roughly $11 million used to calculate his co-conspirators\u2019 sentences. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf the four members of the conspiracy, Mr. Rudo is the only one \u2014 the only one \u2014 who has demonstrated the capacity to self-reflect, to recognize the harm he caused, to admit that he even committed the crime,\u201d Khatib, the prosecutor, said. \u201cMr. Rudo\u2019s rehabilitation has been remarkable.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Rudo showed little of that remorse in his statement before the judge at his sentencing, instead giving a defiant, roughly 20-minute speech rationalizing his actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth was I thought I really could make a difference,\u201d he said. \u201cI was doing affordable housing. I was the fair housing guy. I was meeting with seniors, I was meeting with homeless people. I really didn\u2019t think I could do wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he said he knew that it was wrong to pocket money meant to incentivize developers to build affordable housing or hold a stake in the companies to which he steered affordable housing contracts, he insisted that no opportunities to build affordable housing were lost as a result of the scheme.<\/p>\n
Rudo\u2019s statements didn\u2019t persuade Otake to go easy on him. If anything, they had the opposite effect. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re somebody who\u2019s convinced himself that he is a noble person, and has convinced himself that he is really doing things for the right reasons when I\u2019m not so convinced that\u2019s true,\u201d the judge said. \u201cI do think that here you acted selfishly in many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
His lack of contrition pushed the judge to hand down a sentence that was at the high end of the possible range, although still significantly less than that of his co-conspirators. At their sentencing hearings earlier this year, Budhabhatti was handed 90 months in prison, Zamber received 70 months and Sulla received 60 months.<\/p>\n
Rudo is still involved in affordable housing, he told the court. He works with a nonprofit that helps homeless veterans find housing, and he recently secured a roughly $30,000 grant, as well as a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for six beds to serve homeless veterans. He\u2019s also working on grants and bid proposals for another contractor working on affordable housing. <\/p>\n
Rudo has asked to serve his 46 months at a federal prison in Oregon. He is required to report to the facility by July 9.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat<\/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hawai\u02bbi County employee who pleaded guilty for his role in a bribery scheme worth millions told a federal judge that no affordable housing stock was lost as a result of the plot \u2013 a claim the judge resoundingly dismissed when sentencing him to nearly four years in federal prison last week. Alan Rudo, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"guid":"851de386-fb71-438e-80a9-e02a892c8d30","source":"The Associated Press","byline":"Caitlin Thompson\/honolulu Civil Beat","published":"2026-06-01 10:39:18","updated":"2026-06-01 10:39:18","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1737,1738],"tags":[],"region":[],"class_list":["post-8444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/8444\/hawaii-county-staffer-gets-4-years-in-11m-bribery-scheme\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Hawai\u02bbi County Staffer Gets 4 Years In $11M Bribery Scheme","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/8444\/hawaii-county-staffer-gets-4-years-in-11m-bribery-scheme\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/8444\/hawaii-county-staffer-gets-4-years-in-11m-bribery-scheme\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"International","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Associated Press"}],"creator":["The Associated Press"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iNhome","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2026-06-01T17:39:18Z","datePublished":"2026-06-01T17:39:18Z","dateModified":"2026-06-01T17:39:18Z"},"rendered":"