Posted on: Tuesday, May 15, 2001

Wife of man killed in H-2 shootout pleads guilty to two felonies

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

The wife of a man killed during an April 17 shootout with police on the H-2 Freeway near Waipi'o Gentry pleaded guilty yesterday in Circuit Court to two counts of "unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle."

Defendants in criminal cases in state court rarely plead guilty during arraignment. However, Bernadette Laa entered the pleas as she was being arraigned on the two felony counts, thereby sparing the state the effort and expense of going to trial.

Laa, 28, is the widow of Levi Esperas, 27, who died of a chest wound after a gunfight 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.

Esperas was suspected of stealing three new vehicles from an interisland barge company's storage yard just a few weeks before the deadly incident, according to police testimony at a preliminary hearing in District Court last month.

Police said they had chased a Ford van — containing Esperas, Laa and Jesse Ani, 28, — from Waipahu to an area near the Ka Uka Boulevard exit of the H-2 Freeway just before the shooting broke out. The van had been stolen, police said.

Laa and Ani, both of Wai'anae, were arrested after the shootout. Ani is facing trial on auto theft charges.