"I checked into it, and sure enough, I was being told by DOCARE and DLNR officials that there was no retaliation in that agency, but just about everybody in the boating community had a complaint about retaliation, inconsistency, corruption, you name it," Roth said.



The case in question came to his attention after Keauhou resident Bill Murtagh claimed the boating division staff had altered his son's application for a mooring, in order to make his boat appear smaller.



"The size of the vessel that my son had listed, it was crossed out and there was a different length in there," said Murtagh.



Roth discovered it was too late to investigate the case as a crime, because of the statute of limitations, but also said Murtagh was subjected to a retaliatory audit by boating officials.



"There's corruption at the Division of Boating in many different ways," Murtagh told Hawaii News Now. "The ways I'm aware is preferential treatment to select individuals. There's retaliation for being vocal for standing up against the division."



Roth claims that he, too, was the target of a retaliation attempt when Underwood filed an ethics complaint against him after Roth testified during a hearing about Murtagh's case.



In his complaint, Underwood wrote: "Mr. Roth came to these conclusions based on hearsay and innuendo. At no time did Mr. Roth present any evidence to substantiate his claims that I had acted in a retaliatory manner."