After more than six years of delays, one-time Maui beauty queen Lisa Otsuka was supposed to go to trial this week on felony theft and forgery charges.

It didn't happen.

Otsuka is accused of stealing $300 in cash in 2002 from a car repair company where she worked and forging more than $12,000 in checks for her own benefit.

Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario "reluctantly" granted a six-week extension after Otsuka claimed she hadn't received all the case documents from her last lawyer and also told the judge that she has a hearing impairment.

Otsuka received considerable notoriety in 2002 when her name surfaced in a city prosecuting attorney's investigation of then-Mayor Jeremy Harris' political campaign.

She was never charged with an offense in that probe, but she was indicted twice in 2002 in separate theft cases.

One of those cases ended in a mistrial in 2007, and the other was supposed to start Monday before Del Rosario.

Last week, William Harrison, Otsuka's defense lawyer, withdrew from the case, citing irresolvable conflicts in his continued representation of Otsuka.

He was her fifth lawyer in the case.

Del Rosario told Otsuka on Monday, "The court, the public, the criminal justice system have a right to have these cases heard.

"For seven years we've been waiting to try the forgery and theft cases," he continued. Another delay, he said, "would make a mockery of our legal system."

Later Del Rosario relented and granted a six-week delay in the start of the trial.

He told Otsuka the case will begin March 1.

While Otsuka achieved dubious notoriety in 2002, the victim in the pending case, Beverly Harbin, received considerable negative press in 2005 after Gov. Linda Lingle appointed Harbin to fill a vacancy in the state Legislature.

When reports surfaced that Harbin owed some $125,000 in back taxes and had a misdemeanor criminal record, the governor tried unsuccessfully to get Harbin to resign.

Harbin refused, but lost the seat in the primary election of 2006.

Otsuka served as a temporary bookkeeper for a car repair firm that Harbin operated in 1999.