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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Wednesday, August 15, 2001

In court
Manoa robbery victim identifies defendant

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

A woman who was bound and made to lie face-down on the floor during a home invasion robbery last year said yesterday in Circuit Court that she is certain Shaun Rodrigues was the intruder.

But defense attorney William Harrison maintains that Rodrigues is the victim of mistaken identity. Harrison said Rodrigues' family will testify he was home sleeping when a gunman entered the home of Dawn Sugihara on July 8, 2000.

Rodrigues, 21, is charged with one count of burglary, and two counts each of robbery and kidnapping in the nonjury trial before Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall.

Sugihara testified that she and her mother, Diane Sugihara, were forced to lie face-down on the floor in a second-story room of their Manoa home while the armed intruder spent about 30 minutes rummaging through the house looking for money and jewelry.

At one point, the man told Diane Sugihara that he might be forced to cut off her finger if she continued to resist attempts to take her wedding ring, Dawn Sugihara testified. Her mother then quickly removed the ring, Sugihara said.

A few days later, when the mother and daughter went to the police station with the intention of providing information to a police artist for a sketch of the robber, a picture of Rodrigues "jumped out" at her in a photo lineup of possible suspects, Sugihara testified.

When city Deputy Prosecutor Russell Uehara asked Sugihara how certain she was that Rodrigues was the intruder, Sugihara said: "As certain as I can be."

But Harrison attempted to undermine Sugihara's identification of Rodrigues by reading from a transcript of an emergency call Sugihara made to the 911 line minutes after the intruder left the house. As the police operator was trying to get a description of the man from Sugihara, she said she "really didn't see him," according to the transcript.

She initially described the intruder to police as dark-skinned and possibly Polynesian. Four of the men in the photo lineup had darker skin, Sugihara acknowledged.

While Sugihara and her mother were made to lie face-down with clothes over their heads during most of the time the man was in their house, Sugihara said she got "a very good look" at the man before her face was covered.

The prosecution maintains that Rodrigues was able to enter the Sugihara home without tripping an alarm because he helped install the alarm and had been in the home twice before.

At one point during the robbery, when the intruder demanded to know where the family hid its money and jewelry, Diane Sugihara told the man the home had been burglarized twice in the prior month, Dawn Sugihara testified.

She said the burglar then told her and her mother that they should store their valuables in a safety deposit box "or get a better alarm system."