EXCLUSIVE: HAWAII GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE FOUND GUILTY ON BOTH COUNTS — Assault of Law Enforcement Officer + Driving Without a License

Honolulu, Hawaii – “Alright Ms. Akana, you will rise for the reading of the jury’s verdict at this time.”  With those words, following a three-day trial last week, a jury found 2026 (and 2022) gubernatorial candidate, financial grifter, and rabid statehood denier Kelei Taylor a.k.a. “Kelei Akana” guilty in the 1st degree of the Class C felony of assaulting police officers and guilty of driving without a driver’s license in a traffic stop in Ewa Beach that was deliberately escalated by Taylor into an altercation back on May 5th of this year when she violently resisted arrest while claiming to be a “repatriated citizen” of the nonexistent Hawaiian kingdom – a ‘kingdom’ where she imagines anyone without a license can drive a car with expired tags anywhere they like on kingdom roads and then abuse police officers with the complete blessing of the monarchy.

As a convicted felon whose comical ‘Hawaiian sovereignty defense’ went nowhere, the self-described “Queen of Hawaii” Kelei Taylor now awaits sentencing in February when she could possibly receive the maximum penalty of five years in prison plus a fine of up to $10,000.  In addition, she owes the State of Hawaii money for an earlier cancelled jury trial back in August after some of her antics in court didn’t pay off, not to mention restitution to the officer whose arm she bit (seen above in an HPD bodycam video) while she was punching and kicking officers trying to remove the uncooperative Taylor from her husband’s Mercedes with the expired tags.  In addition to the cost of medical treatment, the bitten officer had to be tested for HIV and Hepatitis.  [Ms. Taylor is fortunate that the woke DEI prosecutor opted to drop the original third criminal charge, which was for resisting arrest.]

Ms. Taylor goes by the alias of “Mrs. Kelei Akana”, alleging that the man who stood by her throughout this legal ordeal is her husband, perennial Hawaii GOP congressional candidate Joe Akana, whose character and judgement the Republican Party repeatedly assured everyone could be trusted.  To be sure, top GOP leaders and candidates and elected officials never warned voters that Mr. Akana was harboring dual hatreds for the United States and for law enforcement.  But HIRA News has uncovered shocking truths about both Akana’s.  For now, know that Mr. Akana is deeply involved in Ms. Taylor’s many problems, including this criminal conviction.  But, more about all of that later.

So what REALLY happened that day?  The story of that day (and leading up to that fateful day) is quite simple.  The Akana’s had been evicted from a rental home in Ewa Beach for nonpayment of rent.  While they crashed at his elderly parents’ Maaloa Street home in Nanakuli, Joe’s parents reportedly evicted an allegedly ungrateful Kelei from their house after she called them “pedophiles” (a term which, like her other favorite epithet “traffickers”, Ms. Taylor calls anyone she doesn’t like, despite their having zero involvement in pedophilia or trafficking).  Reportedly, Joe Akana was recovering from surgery after Kelei had attacked and injured him during a fight while they were actually in a car driving down the road, possibly even this same Mercedes.  After being kicked out of his parents’ Nanakuli house, Ms. Taylor took Joe’s Mercedes and drove to Pu‘uloa Beach Park in Ewa Beach (a.k.a. “Hau Bush”) where she was basically staying the night and living in the car (though she later pretended she was there at this infamous city park to ‘minister’ to victims of trafficking).

The police and prosecution say that Ms. Taylor was sitting behind the wheel in the driver’s seat of a Mercedes in the early morning hours at Hau Bush in Ewa Beach.  Police officers on patrol encountered the expired tags on Joe’s car and an unidentified woman sitting in the car (who did not match the gender of the owner).  The police radioed and found that the registration and safety stickers for that Mercedes were EXPIRED.  Police intervention was guaranteed at this point.

From HPD’s first interaction with her, she was uncooperative; demanding names and badge numbers.  When asked why the car’s vehicle tags were expired, Akana replied, “We going through hard times right now.”  Police reportedly asked Taylor multiple times for her driver’s license to which she refused (“No!”); instead handing officers a pamphlet claiming that her name was on it, while demanding to see the USA’s “treaty of annexation” for Hawaii.  Police again requested she provide her driver’s license or identification card as the name shown on the pamphlet (“Kelei Akana”) was not coming up in their checks as someone with a valid license.  According to the City Prosecutor’s office, Akana continued refusing and argued with officers for several minutes, accusing the officers as having participated in human trafficking and for being pedophiles, while also insisting the officers had “no authority” over her and that the police “are a cabal deep state operation” and that she does not need provide identification to the police because she is “not a citizen”.

Akana also proceeded to deny that officers had any right to stop her as she was “traveling”.  Yes, traveling.  In case you weren’t aware, these ‘sovereign citizen’ nutjobs across the country attempt to differentiate between “driving” and “traveling” in a lame tinfoil hat attempt to circumvent traffic laws. They claim that “driving” refers to commercial activity, while “traveling” is a right provided by the U.S. Constitution. In the grand delusion shared by Mrs. Akana with her crazy compatriots, this distinction without a difference allows them to argue they don’t need licenses, registrations, or insurance when “traveling” in their personal vehicles, since it’s obviously not the same thing as “driving”.  Yeah, right.

One of the fake ‘sovereign citizen’ kingdom plates used by many of Kelei Akana’s compatriots in Hawaii’s statehood denier movement of anti-USA extremists

Anyway, each refusal to comply, each refusal to answer questions, each refusal to provide identification, and then blowing them off for 17 long minutes while they ordered and tried to convince her to exit the vehicle was met with more of Ms. Taylor’s sovereignty nonsense and increasing hostility.  It’s as if she was daring them to do something.  And clearly she was daring them.  Why provoke an incident?  You’ll understand the likely motive shortly.

With the Taser’s barbed, dart-shaped projectiles still attached to Kelei Taylor, and with wires stretching to the Taser gun, Taylor tearfully yet reluctantly surrenders after the needless yet very deliberate standoff with HPD.

Officers then offered “Kelei Akana” a choice:  (1) To provide her license and be cited for the expired safety and registration and exit the undriveable vehicle as it would have to be towed away –or– (2) She would be arrested for driving without a license and for obstruction.  Not happy with either option presented by police (or sensing an opportunity to go viral), Ms. Taylor a.k.a. “Mrs. Akana” reportedly escalated her argumentativeness, started the vehicle and attempted to roll up her window.  Officers instructed her to exit the vehicle and proceeded to prevent her from rolling up the window.  That’s when, prosecutors say, Joe Akana’s wife became combative; ultimately striking one officer when he attempted to reach into the vehicle and secure her hands.  Ms. Taylor was ordered multiple times without success to stop resisting.  Another officer went around to the passenger side of the vehicle and entered to assist the first officer who was being repeatedly struck and kicked by Joe Akana’s ‘wife’, who then grabbed the first officer’s right forearm arm and bit him for 5-10 painful seconds, refusing to let go.  WIth Akana continuing to resist by punching and kicking officers working from both front doors of the Mercedes, they needed to increase the level of force used to detain her, with one officer using strikes to her face and head area; ultimately using a Taser more than once to subdue her.  The zaps from the Taser made it possible to grab her arms and finally handcuff the self-employed mother/consultant/minister/politician/grifter.

Excerpt from police report for Kelei Taylor’s arrest on 05 May 2025.

Following her arrest in Ewa Beach, Kelei Taylor was transported to nearby Queen’s hospital where she could begin faking injuries and justifying the need to utilize a sympathy-inducing wheelchair. The jury was a lot less impressed than Taylor’s social media influencer comrades.

Unspoken in the trial was the video on social media of anti-statehood sovereignty activist Regina “Nani” Peterson which went viral just days before Kelei Taylor’s incident.  The English-speaking Peterson regularly drives around Oahu without a license and uses fake “Hawaiian Kingdom” license plates and a fake ‘kingdom’ driver’s license; making a political statement rather than paying for vehicle registration fees, safety inspections and auto insurance like the rest of us.  In the viral video, the police encounter a highly uncooperative “repatriated citizen” of the kingdom who repeatedly refuses to cooperate because Hawaii is a “fake state”, leading her to taunt them by pretending to only speak Hawaiian and ignore their orders.  Ultimately, police smash Peterson’s window in order to open her door so they can rightfully arrest her.  This viral video appears to be the source of Kelei Taylor’s inspiration for how she stupidly reacted in Ewa Beach.  With Taylor already upset at being kicked out of her “husband’s” parents’ home the night before, why not try to ‘go viral’ like statehood denier and anti-USA role model Regina “Nani” Peterson and become a heroine to the Hawaiian sovereignty community?

Statehood denier and Kelei Taylor role model Regina “Nani” Peterson showing off her fake ‘kingdom’ license plates, fake driver’s license and fake ID card

Or, why not?  For those who actually saw the mountain of evidence against Taylor (which included multiple body camera videos), the guilty verdict was not at all surprising.  Jurors could be seen rolling their eyes at the nutty defenses both Akana’s tried to give in court, while Judge Kevin Souza worked evenhandedly to rein in Joe and Kelei’s many sad and apparently perjurious attempts at jury nullification.  It’s no wonder that a verdict was reached in just 30 minutes.  As they say these days, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

But, prior to trial, the Akana’s and their severely misguided social media ‘influencer’ allies did everything they could since the May 5th incident to portray Kelei Taylor’s self-inflicted fate as “attempted murder” and “attempted assassination” by the Honolulu Police Department.  Their dramatic fantasy retelling of the Ewa Beach ‘police attack’ story at the Honolulu City Council elicited a profuse apology from braindead, pandering Councilwoman Andria Tupola who recently divorced her husband, widely known to be an HPD officer (though Tupola’s husband’s cover at HPD was publicly blown by Taylor’s friend Shelby “Pikachu” Brown).  [Will Tupola now apologize to the police officers and to the community for siding with her Kamehameha Class of 1998 classmate Ms. Taylor and for endorsing her B.S. story?  How about some post-verdict apologies from Taylor’s influencer allies who always omitted Ms. Taylor’s horrible behavior in their completely phony retelling of her story?]  In their crusade to turn Taylor into a celebrity, you’d even see Taylor, Joe Akana and their statehood denying influencer buddies going to meetings of the Honolulu Police Commission where they whined about the fake state’s unreasonable laws requiring cooperation during a traffic stop, rather than being able to punch, kick and bite police officers while resisting arrest in the name of the kingdom.  The Akana’s and their ilk are truly an abomination.

Kelei Taylor testifies at a meeting of the Honolulu Police Commission, with former HPD chief Joe Logan looking on.

Various GOP affiliated groups like Karl Dick’s Kleen House Hawaii, Maui Freedom TV, and others jumped on the Kelei Akana bandwagon in a desperate and reckless attempt to be relevant.  Among them, braindead influencer and fellow “statehood denier” Andrew Aker claimed that “Honolulu Police thugs brutally beat and repeatedly tased Kelei Akana“, frequently providing her an online platform for her shameless victimization nonsense.  Some loser influencer in a yellow plastic mask (calls himself “Pikachu”) wildly proclaimed online moments before the verdict was announced that “the prosecution cannot prove on the video evidence of her assaulting an officer and committing the bite which the officer complains about . . . there’s no video evidence.”  Except there was evidence galore, including video evidence.  Sadly, just like Ms. Taylor, this delusional “Pikachu” also claims that the trial was being held in the “Hawaiian Kingdom”, adding the revealing comment “Hopefully, we can find her not guilty.”  Yep, there’s definitely one born every minute.

Kelei Taylor with her post-arrest fan club comprised of Shelby Brown, Karl Dicks, Robert Santillan and Joe Akana

In the end, the 12 reasonable jurors weren’t buying what she was selling, even if she gave it away for free.  To ensure a fair outcome, the judge made it clear in his jury instructions that Hawaii courts don’t dabble in sovereign citizen, Hawaiian kingdom nonsense.  Only U.S. and State of Hawaii law applies in state court.  Tell that to Regina “Nani” Peterson and the many other delusional hooligans who play this game on a regular basis while their friends in the news media provide cover for them by NOT reporting their antics or the consequences.  Stay tuned for stories exposing recent and ongoing cases mirroring Ms. Taylor’s antics.

For HIRA News, it was truly cringe-inducing to watch Hawaii Republican Party icon Joe Akana lying down on the floor outside the courtroom on Day Two of the trial, apparently in a panic from knowing he and Kelei were being caught in lies and knowing that nobody was buying their bullshit, even after months of peddling said bullshit all over social media with the help of their disgruntled anti-USA allies.  To be sure, this is the very same Joe Akana whose character and judgement the Hawaii GOP regularly told us we could trust and who still DENIES losing the last few congressional elections he decisively lost against Jill Tokuda and Kai Kahele.  On the bright side, investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were in court to observe the Akana’s and got to see Joe and Kelei perjuring themselves.  Why would the SEC be interested in the Akana’s, you may ask?  More about that in a shocking story coming soon from HIRA News.

Kelei Taylor and the deputy prosecutor Cherise Braxton-Brooks stand while the verdict is read

Mrs. Akana, a ‘pro se’ defendant who represented herself in court, repeatedly refused to obtain a lawyer or even accept the Judge’s repeated plea for her to be represented by the public defender (which sounds funny since people who made a fortune in cryptocurrency scams and drive Mercedes cars typically retain high powered private attorneys or even notorious self-promoting lawyers like Hawaii News Now talking head Michael Green).  In front of HIRA News and the entire courtroom during pretrial hearings, the judge CLEARLY advised Taylor that she could be imprisoned and fined if things don’t go her way.  But she, like her husband Joe Akana, believes that Hawaii is a ‘fake state’.  So, to keep up appearances as a statehood denier, she had no choice but to go along with the cliche and hackneyed martyrdom act of pretending she is a ‘repatriated Hawaiian National’ (which Kelei told the judge is precisely when she added “Akana” to her name and dropped the “Taylor”).  As a result of the statehood denying cosplay, she ignored every chance of negotiating a plea deal with those devils from the corporate entity America Inc. and those fake prosecutors in the fake state court . . . even when facing a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the felony assault charge and a one year sentence to prison plus a $2,000 fine for the misdemeanor drivers license violation.

Republican politician Joe Akana being sworn in at the trial of his ‘wife’ for assaulting a police officer after being stopped for driving his car with expired tags

Weeks ago, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Akana posted a video on social media in which she said she expected to collect money from the City in a ‘settlement’ resulting from her forthcoming lawsuit concerning this ‘attempted murder’ in which “someone tried to kill me that day”, possibly from the “deep state cabal” who are ‘trying to stop Joe and Kelei from their work as ministers’ . . . or perhaps simply from HPD “targeting of native Hawaiians” in West Oahu.  Such paranoid sentiments from someone who repeatedly refused to show an ID or driver’s license and then worried why these police unsurprisingly asked for another form of identification, such as her name, her birth date and her social security number.  Paranoid?  Or maybe she’s just a world class bullshitter whose luck finally ran out when a jury of her peers voted unanimously to convict her lock, stock and barrel.

Before the judge imposes sentence on convicted felon Kelei Taylor in February 2026 (three short months from now), personnel from the Hawaii Paroling Authority (HPA) will investigate Taylor to help determine the minimum length of her imprisonment and also if she is a good candidate for probation.  Based on what they learn about Ms. Taylor and her other crimes which HIRA News will soon report on, the HPA may come to realize that the longer she spends behind bars, the safer we will all be from this violent and unpatriotic grifter . . . not to mention her ‘husband’ Joe Akana, whom the Hawaii GOP and many, many other Republicans repeatedly vouched for.  Auwe!

COMING SOON – More Stories HIRA News is working on . . .

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• Which political figures violated our trust when vouching for Joe and Kelei Akana?
• Is Akana a grifter running a fake sex trafficking advocacy group?
• Who tried to clog the courts with ‘sovereign citizen’ nonsense and ‘paper terrorism’?
• Who illegally acted like Kelei Akana’s lawyer and hasn’t been prosecuted yet?
• Does the Statehood Denier sovereignty defense work in Hawaii?
• How many lies did Kelei Taylor and Joe Akana tell under oath on the witness stand?
• Did Kelei Akana snap because the Feds are readying charges against her?
• What were Kelei Akana’s craziest defenses and defense strategies?
• Which Hawaiian Sovereignty organizations is Kelei working with?
• Who is breaking financial laws with ‘fake state’ justification and mentality?
• Who from HRP has been advising criminal defendants to use the sovereignty defense?
• Who calls state judges and leaves angry, threatening voicemail messages?
• Which prosecutor let Kelei Akana off lightly due to her woke, liberal philosophy?
• What surprising ways Kelei Akana defines and uses “trafficking”?
• Why were Kelei’s kids taken away from her? Domestic abuse cases?
• Is Kelei Akana part of a network of fake ministers chasing after money?

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