Posted on: Monday, April 30, 2001

Maui teen gets 10 years for assault on sailors

Associated Press

WAILUKU, Hawaii — A Maui teenager has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the beating last year of two Navy sailors in Lahaina.

Touanga Talakai, 18, pleaded no contest in March to first-degree assault and second-degree theft in the July 14 beatings on Front Street.

Talakai and four of his friends were charged with attacking the sailors. Talakai was the primary instigator in the unprovoked assault, Deputy Prosecutor Carson Tani said at the sentencing Thursday.

Petty Officer Aaron Turner testified at a hearing last summer that he and five other sailors were walking down the street when the alleged attackers drove by in a pickup truck, yelled out, then turned around. They then got out of the truck and confronted the sailors, who were on shore leave from the USS Paul Hamilton, a guided-missile destroyer based at Pearl Harbor that had anchored off Lahaina for a weekend stopover.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Brendt Yamada was kicked to the ground by three of the men, including Talakai, who continued to kick him in the head.

"I started running toward them screaming to stop," Turner testified. "They were kicking him in the head, gangster-style, like they were kicking a soccer ball."

Yamada, who suffered head injuries and a fractured eye socket, continues to suffer short-term memory loss, Tani said.

Two of the other teenagers involved in the assault entered no-contest pleas along with Talakai in March, during their second jury trial. The first trial ended in a mistrial in December after a juror violated 2nd Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza's orders and discussed the case with friends.

Filoimanu Fakava, 18, was sentenced as a youthful offender to five years in prison for first-degree assault. Tevita Pousima, 19, pleaded no contest to three counts of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to nearly three years in jail.

The driver of the truck, John Folau, 20, pleaded no contest to third-degree assault and theft. A fourth teenager, Charles Temo, 17, is being charged as an adult after initially being charged as a juvenile. He has requested a psychiatric evaluation to determine his fitness for trial.