English teacher pleads guilty in Japan financial fraud case

HONOLULU — A man who taught English at a well-known chain of foreign language schools in Japan pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding his students out of more than $230,000.

As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, Rick Mikaele pleaded guilty to mail fraud and impersonating a federal officer or employee.

Mikaele, who was a Nova teacher, told two students he could get them a high rate of return by putting their money into a First Hawaiian Bank certificate of deposit, according to an indictment. He then sent them fake bank statements and a bogus letter to make it look like the U.S. Internal Revenue Service was demanding $7,000 in taxes for profit earned on the money, the court document said.

Mikaele collected nearly $128,000 from one student and nearly $109,000 from another, the indictment said.