Indian Affairs official charged with voyeurism
Dec. 10—SANTA FE — The chief financial officer with the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department has been charged with voyeurism after allegedly placing a hidden camera in the bedroom and bathroom of a 12-year-old girl, according to a complaint filed Dec. 1 in Santa Fe Magistrate Court.
Chandler Kahawai is charged with four counts of voyeurism with a victim under 18, in incidents alleged to have occurred on four occasions in September and October 2021, the complaint states.
Kahawai could not be reached for comment but Indian Affairs Department Public Relations Coordinator Sherrie Catanach said by email: "The allegations disclosed are shocking and troubling. The employee in question was immediately placed on administrative leave; should the facts and outcome warrant, they will be disciplined appropriately, including possible termination."
According to the court documents, Santa Fe police were dispatched to a Santa Fe middle school after school staff notified the Children, Youth and Families Department that the girl said Kahawai "had touched her inappropriately." The girl told a police investigator that she goes to Kahawai's home to play video games and that he has been a part of her life since she was 3 or 4.
Kahawai gave conflicting statements to a police investigator, according to the court documents.
In an interview with police on Oct. 31, Kahawai said he purchased the camera, a digital storage device designed to look like a USB power adaptor, within the past year because he and the girl's mother were concerned the girl may have been self-harming and that the girl's mother knew it was a hidden camera.
But the girl's mother "stated that she was never informed that the USB charger was a hidden camera and that there were zero fears involving" self-harm, the court documents state. Kahawai later said he had never informed the girl's mother that the device was a hidden camera.
Kahawai told police he had seen the girl "naked on the hidden camera" after plugging the device into a laptop but had only checked the files on the camera "'once' a couple of months ago," the documents state.
He did say he "looked at the hidden camera video more that 10 times but less than 20 which depicted" the girl naked, the documents state. Kahawai "admitted what he did was wrong and that he felt attracted" to the girl and stated "he felt disgusted with himself for watching the hidden camera footage" of the girl "in stages of undress, but stated he plugged the camera back in" the girl's bedroom, the documents said.
The girl told the investigator "she was worried that her mom doesn't make a lot of money and that Chandler helps her mom out financially and she "doesn't want to see her mother go in debt over this."
Kahawai was issued a criminal summons and has not been arrested, said Santa Fe police Lt. David Webb. The department's Special Victims Unit sought an arrest warrant on Dec. 1, but a magistrate judge authorized a summons because the judge believed there was "no exigency to make an arrest," Webb said.
Voyeurism is a misdemeanor unless the victim is under 18, in which case it is a fourth-degree felony.
