Posted on: Thursday, November 21, 2002

Rodrigues' behavior draws rebuke

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

A federal judge yesterday told United Public Workers leader Gary Rodrigues that he won't tolerate the type of "fracas" that followed Rodrigues' guilty verdict Tuesday on fraud charges.

Rodrigues, one of Hawai'i's most powerful and influential labor leaders, was found guilty in federal court of 100 criminal charges that stemmed from a scheme to enrich himself by taking kickbacks and steering phony union consulting contracts to his daughter Robin Rodrigues Sabatini.

King said he was disturbed by news reports of the conduct by Rodrigues and his other daughter, Shelly Bonachita, a Kaua'i police officer, inside the courtroom, where Bonachita shouted angrily at prosecutors, and outside the courthouse, where Rodrigues and Bonachita were involved in a brief scuffle with reporters.

"Can't you control your clients?" Senior U.S. District Court Judge Sam King asked defense attorney Doron Weinberg at a hearing yesterday morning.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated a little less than 12 hours beginning Monday afternoon before finding Rodrigues and Sabatini guilty of all charges, including mail fraud and money laundering.

After the verdict was read and King had left the courtroom, Rodrigues bent over a child in his entourage and pointed a finger at the prosecutors. "Get a good look at their faces, remember their faces," he told the youth.

Bonachita turned toward prosecutors and shouted, "Are you happy now? This is all lies. Can you sleep tonight?"

Later, as Rodrigues and his family left the courthouse, he yanked a microphone out of the hands of a television reporter and threw it on the ground while Bonachita shouted, "Get out of here!"

King said behavior like that during a court session would have brought an arrest.

Weinberg told King that the TV reporter dropped her microphone and he said he took issue with what King characterized as a potentially threatening statement Rodrigues made toward prosecutors when he talked to the child.

"Your honor, the event did occur," he said. "The incidents did not occur as reported and were probably exaggerated."

"It seems to me it would be a lot simpler if you would instruct your client to behave," King replied.

But King's warning did not prevent additional displays of anger outside the courthouse yesterday. As Rodrigues and Sabatini left, a member of his group jostled a news cameraman and another person tried to shove his way through a line of TV news cameras.

Rodrigues, 61, and Sabatini, 38, were allowed to remain free, but had to return to court yesterday to listen to arguments about how much, if anything, they must forfeit to the federal government because of their crimes. Their sentencing has not been scheduled, and it is not known how much prison time prosecutors will seek.

King decided, in his own words, "to punt" the forfeiture question back to U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who presided over the trial but had to leave for a hearing in Phoenix before the verdict.

Ezra will convene the jury Wednesday to consider the forfeiture issue. The prosecution contends Rodrigues and Sabatini should forfeit $308,080, the amount paid to Sabatini's companies. But Weinberg said there is no basis for that figure.

Advertiser writers David Waite and Walter Wright contributed to this report.