Maui's top cop and its mayor are now openly accusing each other of wrongdoing, weeks before voters decide the mayor's race.

• Police Chief John Pelletier, placed on paid leave by the police commission, says Mayor Richard Bissen is the suspect in a felony case his own department is investigating.
• Bissen denies it flatly, saying no agency has told him he is under investigation for anything.
• Pelletier's camp says the leave is payback; Bissen says the fight proves the commission needed him out of the way to investigate independently.
• The trigger was the FBI arrest of a Maui police lieutenant on corruption charges — a friend of Pelletier's who led the criminal intelligence unit, which Pelletier then shut down.
• Pelletier's side also questions whether the commission's members are Bissen loyalists, while Bissen's side calls the felony claim a convenient deflection.

Outlook: The arrested lieutenant is back in court in two weeks, there is no end date on Pelletier's suspension, and Wade Maeda is running the department in the meantime.