County Housing Official Jailed Over $11m Bribery Scheme

A former Hawaii County housing official has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for accepting bribes in exchange for steering the approval of affordable housing agreements worth more than $11 million, none of which delivered a single home.

Alan Scott Rudo, 59, a former Housing Specialist at the Hawaii County Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD), conspired with two Big Island attorneys and a private businessman to receive kickbacks for using his official position to secure County approval of three affordable housing agreements (AHAs). The agreements benefitted development companies controlled by his co-conspirators, who promised to build affordable housing but never did.

Through the scheme, the defendants fraudulently obtained more than $11 million in land and excess affordable housing credits (AHCs), paying or attempting to pay Rudo approximately $1.93 million in bribes. The arrangement is a textbook illustration of the corruption-typology risks that arise where a single official holds discretionary approval authority over high-value public assets, with no apparent segregation of duties or independent verification that contractual obligations were ever met.

The honest services wire fraud framework deployed here remains a potent enforcement tool, capturing the deprivation of the public's intangible right to honest governance even where the bribe-payer's scheme is dressed up as a legitimate development arrangement. Notably, attorney Paul Joseph Sulla, 79, also faced a money laundering count, reflecting how laundering charges frequently attach where bribe proceeds are layered through corporate vehicles such as the limited liability companies used here.

Following a District of Hawaii jury conviction in June 2025, the three co-conspirators were sentenced earlier this year: Rajesh Pankaj Budhabhatti, 65, to 90 months; Gary Charles Zamber, 56, to 70 months; and Sulla to 60 months. Zamber's and Sulla's law licences are currently suspended. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and prosecuted by the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section alongside the US Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii.

Read the press release here.