HONOLULU -- A Honolulu Circuit Court jury took less than a day to decide a case that has been under investigation for nine years.

The defendant was Lisa-Katharine Otsuka, who, in 2002, refused to testify in the grand jury investigation of the campaign of then-Honolulu Mayor and governor candidate Jeremy Harris. Otsuka had received money from the campaign, but refused to testify, leading her to be dubbed a "Mystery Woman" in the Hawaii media. The investigation led to criminal charges against a number of Harris' contributors.

After Otsuka refused to testify, she was charged with two unrelated theft cases. The first, for allegedly stealing fundraising proceeds from a cultural dance group, ended in a mistrial when a jury could not agree on a verdict.

The lead witness in the second case, which ended Tuesday, was Beverly Wolff Harbin, the owner of a Kakaako auto repair shop who was once the center of her own political scandal. Harbin was appointed to the state Legislature in 2005 by Gov. Linda Lingle, but within weeks, the governor asked her to resign because Harbin had not told her there were tax liens against her business and she had a misdemeanor conviction for writing bad checks.

Before either scandal, in 1999, Harbin hired Otsuka to handle finances for her business. Prosecutors and Harbin said Otsuka wrote $12,000 in unauthorized checks to herself.

But during trial, the two women remembered vastly different details about Otsuka's employment. Harbin said Otsuka was hired simply as a replacement bookkeeper, was fired when she didn't perform, and the unauthorized checks were discovered later. Otsuka said she was contracted as a business consultant to reorganize Harbin's entire payroll, accounting and personnel system. She claimed Harbin knowingly ran up extra charges by demanding she do work outside the elaborately-detailed contract, which she produced at trial. She said the checks written to her were all authorized.

The jury, which was told nothing about either woman's past, took less than a day in deliberation to find Otsuka not guilty on all counts.

"There was a lot that wasn’t told and there was a lot that couldn’t be said because of the way the court procedes," Otsuka said, after thanking friends, family and members of her church who supported her.

Otsuka said she had refused several offers to plea bargain the case, but, "We wanted our day in court and I fought for that," she said.

Otsuka said she believed the charges were in retaliation for her refusal to testify. During the trial, Harbin said she had not planned to press charges, until she was interviewed three years later by police and prosecutors investigating Mayor Harris.

Deputy Prosecutor Paul Mow said he respected the jury decision and defended the case, pointing out that both the grand jury and Judge Dexter Del Rosario had found enough probable cause to support the charges. He denied the case was retaliation for Otsuka's refusal to testify in the campaign finance investigation.

Otsuka, who got married and had two children during the nine years she's been under investigation, told reporters, "My family is waiting for me, I just want to go home to them."