HONOLULU -- Attorneys for Jimmy Pflueger, the owner of the collapsed Kaloko Dam, said the attorney general is unfairly targeting Pflueger to divert attention from the state's failures.

The Kaloko failure killed eight people in a house downstream. Pflueger was accused in civil lawsuits of modifying the dam to make it unsafe and the attorney general has scheduled a grand jury to consider criminal charges.

"That's wrong. It's not just," Pflueger's attorney, William McCorriston, said.

McCorriston said state Attorney General Mark Bennett's choice of witnesses for the grand jury shows he is using the criminal investigation to divert attention from the failure of the state officials to inspect Kaloko and to cripple Pflueger's ability to defend himself from the civil lawsuits.

"That is the crudest tactic to take advantage of the situation. It sure will help the state. It will help everybody get Pflueger," McCorriston said.

In a motion filed Wednesday with the Kauai courts, Pflueger's attorney is demanding that the grand jury be told that even the state's experts agree that the spillway Pflueger allegedly covered up was not enough to have prevented the tragedy.

Pflueger is also asking the judge to disqualify the attorney general because of conflict of interest.

"I will not be dissuaded from doing my sworn duty as Hawaii's chief law enforcement officer by desperate personal attacks of any kind," Bennett said.

Bennett said he is following ethics rules to separate his investigation from political pressure.

"We have done nothing that is in any way unethical or improper," he said.

A judge will hear Pflueger's requests on Tuesday, a day before the grand jury is scheduled to meet.