David C. Farmer vs. Harmon - Witness Charles Sweeney

David C. Farmer, Successor-Trustee vs. Harmon

(Formerly Woo vs. Harmon & Nicholson vs. Harmon)

CV05-00030 DAE KSC

U.S. District Court For the District of Hawaii

Judges: David A. Ezra; Kevin S. Chang

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DEFENDANT’S WITNESS

CHARLES SWEENEY

Principal in Trinity Investments, LLC.

Trinity Investments, LLC
1 Aloha Tower Drive, Suite 3100
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813, USA

Fax: (808) 529-8800

From the Website: www.trinityinvestments.com/:

CHARLES M. SWEENEY

Chairman and Co-Founder

Charles Sweeney is widely regarded as a visionary in the hotel industry, and one of its most successful developers and entrepreneurs. He is recognized for his development of luxury and upscale hotels and resorts, for his ability to build strong management teams, for strategic operations planning and for his branding and marketing skills. He accurately anticipated, during its infancy, the then untapped market demand for the all-suite hotel, and co-founded, developed and presided over an all-suite hotel company that was sold in early 1996 for approximately US$500 million. During his career, Mr. Sweeney has conceptualized, developed, and operated 54 hotels and resorts throughout the continental U.S. and Hawaii with approximately 16,000 guest rooms/suites, at an estimated aggregate development cost of more than US$1 billion.

Prior to the formation of Trinity, Mr. Sweeney (1) joined and advanced to become President of Amfac's Hotel and Resort Group, directing the business affairs of the company's portfolio of 17 hotels with 8,000 rooms; (2) created and presided over Landmark Suites of America, a hotel development and management company that became the largest franchisee of Granada Royale Hometels (predecessor to the Embassy Suites Chain); (3) co-developed a new hotel brand, Crown Sterling Suites, where as President, he directed the company's business affairs, including the management of 19 hotels located across the U.S.; and (4) conceived and developed numerous all-suite resorts, including Embassy Suites Kaanapali, Maui, the award winning Kea Lani Resort, Wailea, Maui, and the Pointe at Poipu, Kauai.

Mr. Sweeney started his career with the Marriott Corporation. He received his degree in Hotel Administration from Paul Smith College, New York, and is a graduate of Harvard University's Advanced Management Program.

http://www.trinityinvestments.com/management.html

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February 10, 2007

Makena Resort sold for $575 million

By HARRY EAGAR, Maui News Staff Writer

MAKENA - Seibu Group is selling Makena Resort, including the Maui Prince Hotel, to a hui of veteran local developers for $575 million.

The local members are Everett Dowling of Dowling Co. and Trinity Investments, which is led by Honolulu lawyer Jon Miho and Charles “Chuck” Sweeney, who headed partnerships that built the Embassy Suites at Kaanapali and the Kea Lani Hotel at Wailea.

Miho is the son of a Maui couple who operated a tiny hotel, the Miho Hotel, in Kahului before World War II.

Dowling and Trinity are teaming with giant Morgan Stanley Real Estate, which has steered more than $100 billion in real estate investments since 1991.

Dowling said Friday that the first order of business once the deal is closed will be to pursue the existing rezoning application for Makena Resort’s request to revise the resort master plan that has been stalled in the County Council Planning Committee.

Dowling also is developing the 14-acre Keaka LLC condominium project adjacent to Maluaka Beach and the Maui Prince, and owns land at Palauea, which is surrounded by Makena Resort. He says there will be synergistic benefits from controlling both.

He promised that future development would be “green,” a theme of his Maui projects, under the slogan “Building in Balance.”

Donn Takahashi, the president of Prince Resorts Hawaii, said, “Of all the people and companies who could have been the purchasers, this is an excellent fit.”

Takahashi has been head of the Maui Prince three times in the past 15 years, also acquiring additional responsibilities from Prince Resorts Hawaii. He will remain an employee of Prince.

He said Friday that he came back last year when Prince announced it wanted to sell “to oversee a smooth transition, and make sure that the managers and employees are protected.”

He said 78 percent of the staff has been at the hotel for three years or longer and more than half for more than five years.

“It is really these fine folks who are the assets for the resort. That can”t be measured in dollars, but it can be measured in value, and I know the new owners appreciate that.”

When Seibu Group, which owns the Prince chain, announced in September it wanted to sell, employees represented by the ILWU were worried. The announcement of the transaction says the new owners will assume the union contract and retain all union employees.

Willie Kennison, the division director of Local 142, said Friday that he had visited the hotel to begin to “know what direction they want to take it in.”,,,

The rezoning Makena Resort has been seeking, without making much progress over the past two years, would allow an estimated 3,300 units. However, the company said its 20-year plan would include only 1,100 luxury homes, condominiums, apartments and a time-share hotel.

Water is always a sensitive issue for Makena Resort, at the far end of the pipeline from Iao Valley.

Dowling said that “two or three things are going to happen” in regard to water.

First, using green building concepts, demand will be lessened. Next, with the new wastewater treatment plant that is included in the build-out, there will be more treated effluent available for irrigation, opening the prospect of taking all the resort’s irrigation off potable sources.

And that, in turn, opens the prospect of filtering water from brackish wells to improve the quality.

Makena Resort owns a lot of baked rock, all of it needing water to be used for business. Besides the 310-room hotel, the property includes two 18-hole golf courses and about 1,300 acres of unused land.

David Cole, chairman of Maui Land & Pineapple Co., was one of a number of serious shoppers for the property. Interviewed by telephone from Brazil, where he was investigating an ethanol project Friday, he said Dowling “has a real deep understanding” of the property, which he thinks may have given him “a slight edge” over other bidders....

Miho and Sweeney founded Trinity in 1997 to take advantage of what they regarded as undervalued Hawaii hotels.

Trinity now has offices in Honolulu, Mexico, Tokyo and New York and interests in hotels from Austria to Hawaii.

Dowling Company’s Maui projects include Kamalii Elementary, Maui’s first privately-developed public school; four projects for the Department of Hawaiian Homelands; One Palaue’a Bay (neighbor to the Maui Prince); Kulamalu in Pukalani, which includes the Maui Campus of the Kamehameha Schools; and Maluaka in Makena.

Trinity owns and operates the Kahala Hotel on Oahu.

The Seibu Group and Prince Hotels will continue to own and operate the Mauna Kea Resort on the Big Island, which includes the earthquake-damaged Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. Seibu also will keep its Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki and its affiliated golf club.

The Maui Prince opened in 1986 and along with the Kaanapali Beach Hotel was the only large resort on the island that had not changed hands during the 1990s...

http://www.drleisure.com/MakenaSale.html

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May 17, 2006

Corruption at the CIA

Hawaiian
Hideaway?

by Rhonda Schwartz Reports, ABC News

Sources close to the widening probe of official corruption in Washington tell ABC News that investigators are studying travel records of expensive trips to Hawaii and Europe taken by top CIA official Dusty Foggo and San Diego defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

Prosecutors want to know who paid for the lavish trips to European castles and top end Hawaiian resorts, including this $7,000 a night Honolulu beachfront mansion, owned at one time by hair stylist super-star Paul Mitchell.

Wilkes, a close personal friend of Foggo is suspected of paying bribes to Congressman Duke Cunningham, who recently pled guilty in the corruption investigation.

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To see the real estate ad - photos and video of the "Paul Mitchell" Estate - for the luxurious TRINITY vacation home rented for Wilkes and Foggo, click here:

http://www.hawaiianluxuryestaterentals.com/WEBS/Lanikai/104/PAULMITCHELLESTATE.html

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http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/hawaiian_hideaw.html

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Charles Sweeney is expected to testify regarding his business, professional and personal relationships with Trinity Investments, Jon Miho, George Ruff, Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate; Gerard Jervis; Nathan Aipa; Yukio Takemoto; Peter Savio; Guido Giacometti; Susan Tius; Sukamto Sia; Bank of Honolulu; Constance Lau; Diane Plotts; William McCorriston; David Black, Honolulu Star-Bulletin; John Waihee; Renton Nip; Warren Price, III; Apollo Advisors; Leon Black; George Ruff; Judge Patrick Yim; Judge Kevin Chang; Judge David Ezra; Judge Barry Kurren; Judge Robert Faris, Steven Guttman; James Duca; Robert Kessner; Trinity Investments, LLC; Goldman Sachs; Blackstone Group; Maui Hyatt Regency Hotel; Charles Sweeney; Chris Hemmeter; Bill Mills; Maui Planning Commission; Judith Neustadter Fuqua; Jerrold Chun; David Fairbanks; Kea Lani Resort, Maui; Kona Beach Hotel; Azabu USA; Embassy Suites Kaanapali Resort, Maui; Harbor Court, Honolulu; Queen’s Court, Honolulu; John Snow, CSX Corporation; Rock Resorts; VMS Realty**; Prudential Securities**; Aloha Tower Marketplace; Sanford Murata; Michelle Tucker, Sterling & Tucker; Mitsui Trust & Banking; Wailea 670 and Palaupea Properties, Maui; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Marubeni Corporation; BNL; Linda Chu Takayama; Linda Lingle; Bob Awana; Mark Bennett; James Pflueger; James Nicholson; David C. Farmer, Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, Larry Mehau, Ron Rewald, and others to be named upon discovery.