Neighbor Island briefs

Advertiser Staff and News Services

BIG ISLAND

Big Isle crash kills Japan man

WAIKOLOA, Hawai'i — The Big Island recorded its first traffic fatality of the year when a tractor-trailer hit a rental car on Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway yesterday, killing a Japanese visitor.

The collision occurred around 8 a.m. at the Waikoloa Beach Drive intersection in South Kohala. Police said a rented 2002 Nissan Maxima operated by Tadashi Ishii, 68, of Anagasaki-Shishyogo, Japan, was turning left onto the highway when it was broadsided by a southbound truck loaded with cinder soil.

Ishii was pronounced dead shortly after noon at Kona Community Hospital, and his wife, Fumiko Ishii, 61, who was a passenger in the car, was taken to North Hawai'i Community Hospital with a fractured neck and ribs.

The truck driver, a 41-year-old Waikoloa man, was not injured.

Ex-official to pay restitution

KAILUA, KONA, Hawai'i — The former district manager of the state's small boat harbors on the Big Island has pleaded no contest to three counts of theft and two counts of attempted theft for making false pay claims and misusing travel vouchers.

As part of a plea agreement, Jeffrey S. Bearman, 44, agreed on Monday to pay restitution of $28,000. He will be sentenced April 2 in Kona Circuit Court.

Deputy Attorney General Christopher Young said the crimes occurred between January 1999 and April 2001, when Bearman was paid for 641 hours of work and 242 hours of overtime worth a total of $21,821 that he didn't perform. Bearman also stole $7,144 in state-purchased airline coupons and car rental vouchers that were not used for state business. Young said Bearman sold some of the airline coupons to a co-worker and gave others to his mother and his girlfriend.