Ex-Big Island attorney gets 60 months in affordable-housing bribery case

More than $11 million in land and excess affordable-housing credits that were supposed to support Hawaii County families instead vanished into a bribery and kickback scheme that produced no homes at all. Former Big Island attorney Paul Joseph Sulla, 79, of Hilo, was ordered to serve 60 months in prison for his role in a corruption case that distorted the county’s housing pipeline and left the promised benefits unrealized.

Sulla was convicted of conspiracy, honest-services wire fraud and money laundering after prosecutors tied him to a scheme involving attorney Gary Charles Zamber of Keaau and former Big Island businessman Rajesh Pankaj Budhabhatti. The three were found to have conspired to pay bribes and kickbacks to Hawaii County housing specialist Alan Scott Rudo in exchange for approvals that benefited their development companies.

Those companies, Luna Loa Developments LLC, West View Developments LLC and Plumeria at Waikoloa LLC, never built a single housing unit, court records said. Still, they obtained more than $11 million in land and excess affordable-housing credits, a result that highlighted how quickly a public program meant to create affordable homes can be bent into private gain when oversight fails. Roughly $1.93 million was paid or attempted to be paid to Rudo as part of the scheme.

The case reached the island’s courts as one of the most consequential public-integrity prosecutions in recent memory because it sat at the intersection of land, money and housing scarcity on Hawaii Island. When affordable-housing approvals are corrupted, the damage goes beyond paperwork and compliance. Projects can be delayed or derailed, public trust in the county’s housing process can erode, and scarce resources can be redirected away from residents who are already struggling to find a place to live.

Sulla’s sentence followed earlier punishments for the other participants. Zamber received 70 months in prison and Budhabhatti received 90 months. Rudo, who pleaded guilty and testified in the case, is scheduled to be sentenced later. The sequence of sentencings has underscored that the legal consequences are still unfolding, even as the central facts remain stark: housing credits intended to help working families on Hawaii Island were traded through fraud, and no homes were ever built from the deals that were supposed to deliver them.