Felony charges against six men who took part in a violent takeover of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs headquarters in January 2019, during which two OHA employees were assaulted and other threatened, have been dismissed for violating the defendants’ right to a “speedy trial.”
Circuit Court Judge Fa`auuga To`oto`o dismissed the charges during a hearing on August 12 “without prejudice,” meaning that charges can be refiled a the discretion of prosecutors.
It has been 5-1/2 years about a dozen men dressed in red shirts and identifying themselves officers of a Kauai-based group known as “Kingdom of Atooi” stormed the OHA headquarters and violently took control, assaulting two OHA employees and threatening others, while announcing they were there to seize the agency’s assets and arrest “corrupt” trustees.
The six defendants were initially charged with multiple misdemeanors, but those charges were withdrawn after numerous Hawaiian organizations called for charges carrying stiffer penalties. A state grand jury then indicted the six in December 2021 on charges of felony kidnapping, assault, and terroristic threatening.
Four of the defendants–Jordan Faletogo, Ene Faletogo, Rheece Kahawai, Remedio Dabaluz–sought and received court approval last year to represent themselves with only limited assistance from standby attorneys. They repeatedly but unsuccessfully argued that the State of Hawaii is an “illegal entity,” and that the court has no jurisdiction over them as authorized “federal marshals” of the “independent” Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi.
Two other defendants–Sadhu-Bhusana Bott and Peter Laban–are no longer living in Hawaii, and prosecutors previously announced the intention to seek their extradition back to the islands before trial.
The motion to dismiss the case for violating the speedy trial rule was filed by Honolulu attorney Nelson Goo, standby attorney for defendant Ene Faletogo. In an attached declaration, Goo said the period between the 2021 indictment and the trial that had been scheduled to begin February 22, 2024 was 804 days, with up to 510 days qualified to be excluded from the calculations.
“Therefore 192 days have lapsed, in violation of Rule 48,” which establishes a 180-day limit, Goo argued.
Deputy Attorney General Michelle Puu replied that when the trial date was reset following the court’s denial of an earlier motion to dismiss, ” no one from the Defense raised any disapproval whatsoever with the anticipated delay.”
“However, by operation of law, the time elapsed1 constitutes a violation of Rule 48 under the Hawaii Rules of Penal Procedure,” Puu wrote. “Therefore, even though there is no itemization or accounting in the Defense’s Motion to Dismiss as to the allocation of time, the State concedes the violation under HRPP Rule 48.”
“However,” she continued, “the State submits that dismissal of the indictment herein must be without prejudice as the Defense has failed to put forth any facts to substantiate otherwise; and even if it had, a thoughtful review of the relevant factors weigh heavily in favor of the State.”
A list of each procedural step that introduced delays in the case, including several changes of attorneys, the recusal of two different judges, and the decisions by defendants to represent themselves, filled five typed pages.
She argued that “the facts and circumstances of this case reveal that the delay was inadvertent, minimal, and not attributable to any fault, negligence, or delay tactic by the State….Here, all four Defendants terminated counsel, pursued fruitless motions, left the jurisdiction, and failed to timely review proposed orders. These actions resulted in delays of these proceedings. More than any of that however, COVID restrictions heavily contributed to much of the delay in these proceedings.”
Judge To`oto`o agreed, and dismissed the charges without prejudice, as requested by the Attorney General’s office.
See:
“Hawaii Monitor: Some Laughable Royalty Claims,” Civil Beat, Feb. 26, 2014
“Critical reporting needed on self-proclaimed sovereigns,” iLind.net, Jan. 30, 2019
“News of OHA “takeover” shows shallowness of reporting on Hawaiian issues,” Feb. 5, 2019
“Occupation of OHA offices in 2019 finally leads to felony indictments,” Dec. 12, 2021
“Two facing felony charges in 2019 takeover of OHA offices likely to raise a sovereignty defense,” iLind.net, Sept. 4, 2022
“Defendant in 2019 invasion of OHA office claims state court has no jurisdiction,” iLind.net
“Kingdom of Atooi case heading to trial after motion to dismiss is denied,” iLind.net, Aug. 21, 2023
“‘Speedy Trial’ Violations Rare in Hawaii,” Civil Beat, May 25, 2011
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Ian, thank you for your persistent tracking of this particular case, as well as your research on the issue of speedy-trial violations, and for providing those clickable links. Whoever is responsible for this failure in the prosecutor’s office should be disciplined, although I can imagine that personnel changes and political ducking of the issue would make that difficult or perhaps impossible. Let’s hope that the charges are re-filed as the “without prejudice” rendering indicates will be allowed.
OHA has a history of not representing H’wns and their best benefits. It’s not an easy place to get a hearing, so frustration has been historically noted. Not here to excuse any law breaking, but if gvmnt lacks transparency and open access, the taxpayers’ voices (those who pay for it) get louder.
Some of the defendants have criminal records. For instance, Ene Faletogo has been convicted of felony drug dealing 4 times. There aren’t political protesters, they are just thugs and criminals running a sovereignty-oriented shakedown system in the community. Attacking OHA HQ just builds their fame and therefore gives them better leverage to extract money and other favors from businesses and individuals.
Defendants dragged this saga out with their nonsense legal arguments and it apparently worked in their favor. In fact, it appears that a couple simply absconded and never showed up for court at all, and it’s unclear whether anyone even attempted to take them into custody on the resulting bench warrants.
The message is clear: play the kooky kingdom card and you can get away with quite a lot, even impersonating law enforcement officers and assaulting state officials, Hawaiians, and the state entity mandated to assist Hawaiians.
Tell me why did these individuals aren’t charged with impersonating an officer? I mean they were charged with assault 2 and kidnapping… but why no impersonation of law enforcement? Seems fishy on the state not to?
I believe it is because they didn’t claim to be federal, state, or county law enforcement officers. They had badges identifying them as federal marshals of Atooi. As I recall, they were charged with impersonation in a Kauai case, and the charges were dismissed. But I’ll have to go back and check on that.
Thank you Ian for the updates I been doing research on them for awhile. It seems rather interesting that they get dismissed in court a few times. Looking into this details about oha the atooi group had paperwork’s backing them stamped and signed by the AG back in 2019 before the oha incident. Personally I feel the state don’t wanna touch this and leave this on the hook due to there negligence on what they approved. But it’s very interesting as this is surfacing. Not looking good on the state let’s hope this gets solved.