Defendants say new habeas filings expose Ineffective Counsel, distorted loss calculations, and a prosecutor now under FBI review for his handling of their case.
HONOLULU, HI, February 10, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Chris and Erin Mazzei, a married couple prosecuted in the District of Hawaiʻi in connection with Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, have filed federal habeas corpus motions under 28 U.S.C. §2255 asking the United States District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi to vacate, set aside, or correct their sentences in case no. 22 00045 JMS. Erin Mazzei is currently serving a 27 month sentence, while Chris Mazzei has been sentenced to 35 months but has not yet begun serving his term.
The motions allege a pattern of constitutional violations, including ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct and Brady violations, improper restitution and forfeiture practices, and serious conflicts of interest within Hawaiʻi's attorney discipline system.
White House, FBI Los Angeles Reviewing Prosecutor's Conduct
In addition to the §2255 motions, the Mazzeis state that they sent supporting materials to FBI Director Kash Patel. According to the defendants, the FBI's Executive Secretariat responded in writing, acknowledged personally reviewing their correspondence, and stated that, because FBI matters are handled by local field offices, the materials were forwarded to the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office for appropriate handling.
According to the motions and corroborating documents, the prosecutor forced the foreclosure of the family's Arroyo Grande, California residence bought in 2017, that had over $1 million in equity—which the Mazzeis contend had no legitimate connection to PPP proceeds—and then dispatched government agents to the foreclosure auction to bid on the home using their seized assets and funds already paid back toward the PPP loans, after they learned they had received incorrect advice from the loan originator.
Alleged Coercive Tactics and Suppressed PPP Evidence
Both §2255 motions accuse AUSA Gregg Yates of using coercive tactics to secure guilty pleas and of misrepresenting key facts to the court.
The Mazzeis allege that the prosecutor:
• Threatened to bring criminal charges against Chris's 77 year old mother, who had no role in the PPP loans, unless the couple accepted a plea agreement that prohibited any downward departures.
• Presented a fabricated narrative at sentencing by claiming, among other things, that a Kapolei condo was purchased solely as a VRBO vacation home, that PPP funds were used to pay off the Arroyo Grande mortgage, that Chris purchased a billboard to attract Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and that the Ohana TV series project was merely a "vanity television project," despite years of development and movement toward pre production before COVID.
• Used a Department of Justice investigator to call a character witness while posing as a court official on the eve of sentencing to "verify" a character letter, which the Mazzeis argue undermined the integrity of the government's investigation.
The Ohana TV series was developed years before COVID as a scripted crime drama set in 1990s Hawaiʻi, with storylines drawn from real organized crime, government corruption and bribery cases from that era. The Mazzeis note that one of those storylines mirrored an actual 1990s public corruption prosecution involving a Hawaiʻi lawmaker, a case handled by then federal prosecutor J. Michael Seabright, who later sentenced them in the PPP matter. They say this overlap underscores why their project—focused on organized crime and government corruption—should have been seen as a legitimate entertainment property, not dismissed as a "vanity project," and raises additional concerns about whether the court approached their case with sufficient distance from those earlier prosecutions.
The filings further assert that emails from loan originators explicitly stating that payroll projections were acceptable for PPP loan applications were never allowed into the courtroom, in violation of Brady. The Mazzeis emphasize that traditional SBA lending has long allowed underwriting based on business projections, and argue that turning those same projections into the basis for criminal charges—while burying supportive emails—recasts standard SBA practice as fraud after the fact.
The motions also reference United States v. Anthony T. Williams, case no. 1:17 CR 00101, another case tried by AUSA Yates in which the defendant filed formal complaints alleging selective prosecution, evidence tampering, and misuse of sealed filings, which the Mazzeis say points to a troubling pattern.
Massive Repayment, Asset Seizures, and "Deterrence" Sentences
The §2255 motions challenge how loss, restitution, and forfeiture were handled in light of the couple's extensive repayment efforts.
The filings state that:
• The total alleged PPP loss was approximately $1,365,333.33, and roughly $1,147,754.87—about 84%—had been repaid before sentencing, with the ability to fully repay if the Mazzeis had been permitted to access over one million dollars of equity in their home.
• Despite acknowledging the "great effort toward restitution," Judge Seabright imposed custodial sentences of 35 months for Chris and 27 months for Erin, explicitly stating that the sentences were imposed "purely for deterrence," and treating restitution as something separate from punishment. In light of the U.S. Supreme Court's January 2026 decision in Ellingburg v. United States, which held that federal restitution is "plainly criminal punishment" and part of the sentence—not a mere civil fine—the court must now reconsider their case with the full weight of both incarceration and restitution counted together, rather than stacking one on top of the other as if restitution did not already punish.
• The court did not calculate the sentencing guidelines based on "actual loss" as opposed to "intended loss," which the motions argue is contrary to the approach adopted in United States v. Banks, 55 F.4th 246 (3d Cir. 2022), particularly where defendants worked with authorities to repay loans after learning of bad advice.
• The Department of Justice's own forfeiture policy, which requires that charges be filed within 90 days of asset seizure or that property be returned, was violated when it took roughly a year for charges to be brought while the Mazzeis' property remained seized.
The motions also contend that the court misled the couple at the change of plea hearing by suggesting forfeited and recovered funds would offset restitution, only for them to face the prospect of "paying twice" through a combination of forfeiture, foreclosure, and restitution orders.
Ineffective Counsel and Conflict Inside Hawaiʻi's Attorney Discipline System
The Mazzeis' §2255 filings describe what they call pervasive failures by multiple defense lawyers and a conflict of interest at the Hawaiʻi Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC).
For Chris Mazzei, the motion alleges that retained counsel Dan Cogdell, whose wife was undergoing cancer treatment, was effectively "checked out" and failed either to withdraw after repeated concerns or to fully protect Mazzei's rights. Cogdell is alleged to have waited until the night before sentencing to raise a substantial‑assistance motion under U.S.S.G. §5K1.1 and never argued "actual loss vs. intended loss" at sentencing despite promising to do so. At a time when experienced defense attorneys around the country routinely challenge the outdated loss‑amount tables—whose dollar thresholds have not kept pace with inflation and are now being re‑examined by the U.S. Sentencing Commission—Cogdell made no effort to press for a more realistic guideline range or to show how the Mazzeis' high repayment and minimal actual loss warranted a far lower sentence. The motion states that he did not meaningfully challenge documented misstatements by the prosecutor at the hearing, leaving the impression that the defense was "calling in" the case rather than fighting for a modern, proportionate sentence.
The motion further asserts that court appointed attorney Richard Gronna did "no motions, no interviews, no files, no review, not even returning a phone call" during roughly a year of representation and moved to withdraw only after Chris asked him to challenge asset seizures. After Chris filed a grievance with the Hawaiʻi ODC regarding Gronna's performance, the motion states that Gronna was hired by the ODC in a position responsible for reviewing and approving or denying complaints against attorneys at the same time the Mazzeis' complaint against him was pending, raising what they describe as a glaring conflict within Hawaiʻi's attorney oversight system.
Erin Mazzei's motion similarly alleges ineffective assistance: court appointed counsel Salina Kanai allegedly told her she would "just wait to hear from the prosecutor" and filed no substantive motions or conducted any meaningful pre indictment work over 11 months. Successor counsel John Schum is alleged to have remarked that Judge Seabright was "upset" and acting more on emotion than as a neutral arbiter, yet he did not move for recusal, object on the record, or otherwise attempt to mitigate the perceived bias.
Both motions assert that these cumulative deficiencies satisfy the standard for prejudice under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), because there is a reasonable probability that, with effective and conflict free representation, the outcome of the sentencing—and even key pre sentencing decisions—would have been materially different.
Constitutional Framework and Relief Sought
The Mazzeis acknowledge that their plea agreements included waivers of appeal and collateral attack but argue that these waivers should not be enforced under the three prong test set forth in United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315 (10th Cir. 2004). They contend that their claims fall within the narrow category of collateral review rights that remain available, that any waiver was undermined by undisclosed conflicts and coercion, and that enforcing the waivers under these circumstances would result in a miscarriage of justice.
Citing Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003), the motions argue that ineffective assistance claims are properly raised in an initial §2255 proceeding and that the court must confront the combined impact of counsel failures, prosecutorial misconduct, and the government's handling of property and forfeiture.
The Mazzeis ask the court to:
• Vacate their sentences and resentence them using an "actual loss" framework and corrected restitution figures that fully credit their repayments and seized funds, consistent with Banks and inflation.
• Order an evidentiary hearing under Rule 8 of the Rules Governing §2255 Proceedings to examine counsel performance, prosecutorial conduct, forfeiture and foreclosure practices, and the ODC conflict.
• Grant any further relief deemed just and proper, including appointment of appropriate counsel and, if relief is denied, a certificate of appealability so the case can be reviewed by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"These motions are about accountability," the Mazzeis state in their filings. "We relied on information from originators using the same kind of projections the SBA has always allowed on traditional SBA loans, cooperated, and repaid nearly everything, yet we were still threatened, stripped of our home, and given sentences 'for deterrence' instead of justice. This is not an isolated story—it is part of a broader pattern. We are asking the court to hold the integrity of the justice system at the highest level, and asking the people of Hawaiʻi to look closely at how this case was handled from start to finish, because if Ohana had been allowed to go into production it could have restored many jobs lost to COVID and brought millions to the Hawaiian economy."
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