Ex-guard ordered to trial in prison drug case
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
A third person is facing criminal prosecution as the result of an ongoing federal and state investigation into how illicit drugs find their way into Hawai'i's prisons.
District Judge Russell Nagata yesterday ruled that sufficient evidence was presented to send former prison guard Richard C. Brooks to Circuit Court to stand trial on a charge of first-degree promotion of a dangerous drug.
Honolulu lawyer Thomas Stephen Leong and Halawa prison corrections officer Melvin H. Moisa were arrested Friday on federal drug charges. Leong was released yesterday after posting 20 percent cash on a $50,000 bond. Federal magistrate Leslie Kobayashi ordered Leong to avoid all contact with prison correction officers and inmates pending his trial.
He will be allowed to continue practicing law in cases where he does not have direct contact with clients who are in prison.
According to court documents and court testimony, Brooks called an undercover Honolulu police officer on April 17 to set up a meeting in Mililani the following day.
The undercover officer was to deliver 2 ounces of crystal methamphetamine and $5,000 in cash to Brooks, who was then to deliver the money and drugs to Brooks' attorney. The attorney was not named in the documents or during court testimony yesterday.
The crystal meth was supplied to the undercover officer by the FBI while the Honolulu Police Department provided the money that was used, according to court documents.
The undercover officer met with Brooks in the Tesoro gasoline station parking lot near the Mililani Wal-Mart store and gave Brooks the money and drugs, according to court testimony.
Brooks was arrested after he got out of the undercover officer's car and had just entered his own car, according to the testimony and court documents.
While Nagata ordered Brooks bound over for trial on the felony drug charge, he granted a defense request by reducing Brooks' bail from $200,000 to $100,000.
According to Department of Public Safety records, Brooks was hired in July 1994 and worked for the department until March 7.
Acting Public Safety Director James Propotnick said yesterday that an investigation by the FBI and several state and county agencies began about a month ago to try to cut off the supply of drugs available to prison inmates.
Propotnick said recent testing of certain inmates at various state prison facilities showed that 20 percent of them had been using drugs.
While that would not mean one-fifth of all prison inmates are using illegal drugs, it is an indication of the quantity of drugs available inside the prison, Propotnick said. "No percentage of drugs in our institutions is acceptable to me," Propotnick said.
Smuggling drugs into prison has been a constant problem, one caused by "those who are stupid enough to ruin their lives and end their careers — for what — a few bucks or even a few thousand bucks," Propotnick said.
The wardens of the Halawa Correctional Facility and the O'ahu Community Correction Facility swapped places with each other after three men escaped from Halawa on April 14. Propotnick would not say yesterday whether concern about the level of illicit drug use within state prisons was a contributing factor.
"They were reassigned for a number of reasons. That's all I can say. I have to leave it at that," Propotnick said.
Advertiser staff writer Mike Leidemann contributed to this report.
