Ex-harbor agent gets one-year jail term

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

WAILUKU, Maui — A former Lahaina Harbor agent was sentenced yesterday to a year in jail and ordered to pay $40,841 in restitution for pocketing slip rental fees since 1996.

Gerald Lum, 47, also was sentenced by Maui Circuit Court Judge Shackley Raffetto to five years' probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

Lum, who earlier pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree theft and one count of tampering with a governmental record, took full responsibility for his actions and expressed remorse in a statement to the court. He also pledged to pay the restitution in full.

A Department of Land and Natural Resources agent at Lahaina Harbor since July 1992, Lum was arrested in February after an investigation by the state attorney general's office.

Authorities said Lum stole rental fees paid to him by boaters using temporary slips at the harbor.

The state identified four boat owners who claimed they had been making cash payments of at least $142 a month directly to Lum. In a couple of instances, the payments totaled $8,400 each over a five-year period.

Lum admitted stealing slip rental fees from six different vessels.

The investigation also found that last December, Lum registered a nonexistent vessel and then assigned it to a permanent slip within the harbor.

Officials with the state's Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation say they have instituted new fee-collection policies designed to prevent future thefts.