Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday defended her former chief of staff, Bob Awana, and said she knew of no evidence linking a state-sponsored visit to the Philippines with the secret extramarital relationship that led to Awana's resignation in June.

Awana stepped down because of persistent media attention and inquiries about the nature of an extortion scheme that targeted him and focused on his e-mail exchanges with a woman, Lingle said in her first extensive public comments about the departure of her former top aide and campaign chairman.

"Bob resigned because the media attention and sensationalization of him being a victim of blackmail, and the media focusing in on his personal life and personal issues happened in such a furious way that he and I decided it would detract from what our administration was trying to achieve and would remain a distraction ..." Lingle told reporters at the Capitol yesterday.

The governor criticized news reports that federal authorities are continuing to investigate whether members of state delegations conducted themselves improperly in Asia.

"I have never been contacted once, directly or indirectly," by investigators, said Lingle, who blasted what she called the news media's "appetite for salacious details."

Lingle called Awana's secret extramarital affair with the Filipina a "personal matter" for him.

"Bob was a victim of a crime; he was blackmailed," Lingle said. "Just as anyone here who is married and was online and had a relationship with someone would be subject to blackmail. In his case, he went to the federal authorities with it, and he told me about it. This person was prosecuted and convicted of blackmail."

Rajdatta Patkar, an Indian national who pleaded guilty to extortion here, had demanded $35,000 from Awana and threatened to reveal information about Awana's contacts with the Filipina.

Patkar's attorney, deputy federal public defender Pamela Byrne, said in October that her client hacked into the e-mail accounts of his Filipina ex-girlfriend and her friend and discovered e-mails from Awana in September 2005.

In the e-mails, Awana tried to get Patkar's girlfriend, a woman named Julie Mae, to join Awana, his girlfriend Jet Ebale and some "friends" for a weekend in the Philippines during a January 2006 trade mission with Lingle, Byrne said.

Mae "would receive favors, including money and the ability to come to Hawai'i to finish nursing school, if she performed favors for his friends," Byrne said after Patkar was sentenced to one year in federal prison. "It was men behaving badly."

The Advertiser has reported that federal investigators are examining the behavior of Awana and other state officials on Lingle administration-led trade missions to the Philippines, China and South Korea.

Lingle said she knew nothing of such a probe.

"I don't know and I've never been approached about any investigation of my administration of any kind," she said. "We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. We always have. And it's disappointing when someone does something in their personal life that causes people to lose focus on our main issues. But it occurred, it's over. It should have been over a lot earlier. I hope we can focus on our state and what's really important."

Lingle said Awana had told her the secret extramarital relationship was not connected to any state trip, and that she had seen no evidence to suggest he had acted improperly on such trips.

"Based on the information that I have, I believe that he always conducted himself appropriately when he was on an official state trip," she said.

Lingle said discovery documents under a court protective order in relation to the extortion case should be publicly released only if a judge determines they address allegations of impropriety on state trips. Otherwise, the information should remain sealed, she said.

"An official state trip, to me, that should be public information and you would have a right to that information, and so would the public, and I would want to have that information," she said.

The Associated Press has petitioned the court to release hundreds of documents, including copies of e-mails to and from Awana.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright is expected to rule on release of the documents sometime after Jan. 4.

The Advertiser is not involved in the case.