Posted on: Friday, March 8, 2002
Abuse allegations retracted
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
The girlfriend of developer and former Bank of Honolulu chairman Sukamto Sia testified in federal court yesterday that she lied to Los Angeles police when she told them Sia slapped her in the face following a quarrel at the couple's West Los Angeles home Feb. 12.
Federal prosecutors are using the incident between Sia and his longtime girlfriend Kelly Randall as the basis for their request to have Sia held without bail until he is sentenced March 21 in a bankruptcy fraud case.
Sia, 43, pleaded guilty Oct. 19 to three bankruptcy fraud charges.
Federal Judge David Ezra allowed him to remain free on $1.5 million bail while awaiting sentencing.
But assistant U.S. attorneys Craig Nakamura and Mark Rectenwald are claiming Sia broke several bail conditions as a result of the incident and should be held without bail until he is sentenced.
At a bail revocation hearing before Ezra yesterday, Los Angeles police officers Brian Strader and Rafael Rocha Jr. said they were sent to a home on Moraga Drive after police received a 911 emergency call.
Strader said Randall, 34, told him she had argued with Sia and that he slapped her on the face three or four times with an open hand. Strader described Randall as "visibly shaken and crying off and on."
But when Randall was informed that Sia was going to be arrested for domestic battery, she said: "I lied, he really didn't hit me," Strader testified.
He said Randall told him she planned to file for a restraining order against Sia the next day.
Rocha said Sia denied ever having been arrested and told him an electronic monitoring device on his wrist was a watch.
When Sia's attorney, David Chesnoff, questioned the two police officers, they said they were not aware the Los Angeles city attorney's office had decided not to pursue the case against Sia. They acknowledged the report that was filed on the report did not include several of the things they mentioned at yesterday's hearing, such as bloody tissues being found on a nightstand, Sia telling them not to go into a bedroom where Randall was, Randall asking for a restraining order and Randall telling them she did not want Sia to be arrested.
Randall testified yesterday on Sia's behalf. She said Sia did not hit her on the night in question. She said she was upset that Sia had allowed a woman who dined with them earlier in the evening, and who had become drunk and was left at a restaurant by her date, to accompany them home.
Randall said the woman vomited on the floor between her bed and a nightstand and that she and Sia cleaned the carpet with Kleenex tissues. The vomit was red from the red wine the woman consumed earlier.
Randall said she felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"I was stomping my feet, yelling, crying, throwing a fit," Randall said.
When asked directly by William McCorriston, one of Sia's lawyers, if Sia slapped her on the face, Randall replied, "Absolutely not."
When questioned by Nakamura, Randall acknowledged Sia has been her sole means of support for the past 12 years and and that he bought the $4.2 million house in Los Angeles and took her on trips around the world even after he filed for bankruptcy.
She denied Sia bought her a pair of $325,000 diamond earrings in May 2000 until Nakamura showed her a receipt with her name on it.
The bail revocation hearing is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. today.
