Posted on: Thursday, April 26, 2001

Thefts preceded H-2 shootout

Advertiser Staff

A man who died after a shootout with police April 17 on the H-2 Freeway was suspected of stealing three new vehicles from an interisland barge company's storage yard just a few weeks prior to the deadly incident, a police detective testified at District Court yesterday.

Police Detective Bruce Swann said he interviewed Jesse Ani about a missing Dodge pickup truck, Mazda utility vehicle and Mercedes sedan that had been reported stolen earlier this month.

Swann said Ani told him that a man named Levi had stolen the vehicles from the Young Brothers storage lot at Pier 40 and had given the cars to Ani to drive.

Swann said Ani admitted that he knew the cars were stolen.

Levi Esperas, 27, died of a chest wound after a gunbattle with police that erupted after officers stopped a van on a medial area of the H-2 Freeway near the Ka Uka Boulevard off-ramp.

Police said they had chased the Ford van from Waipahu just before the shooting broke out.

The van had been stolen, police said. Its occupants were Esperas; his wife, Bernadette Laa; and Ani.

Laa and Ani, both 28 and both of Wai'anae, were arrested after the shootout.

District Judge Tenney Tongg yesterday ordered Ani and Laa to stand trial in Circuit Court on multiple charges of auto theft related to the cars allegedly taken from the Young Brothers lot.

Denise Iseri-Matsubara, customer service supervisor for Young Brothers, said cars waiting to be shipped to the Neighbor Islands are parked in a company storage lot with the keys in the ignition or in the exterior door locks to facilitate their being loaded on barges.

The lot is fenced and a gate is locked at night, but the gate is not locked during the day, Iseri-Matsubara said. The yard does not have security cameras, she said.

Swann, meanwhile, said Ani told him he enjoyed driving one of the stolen cars, a Mercedes-Benz CL 500, up and down Farrington Highway in Wai'anae "because it got a lot of attention."