Hawai'i briefs
Advertiser Staff
Music teachers offer workshops
A series of workshops will be conducted tomorrow at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa as part of the annual Hawai'i Music Teachers Association convention.
The workshops, in Orvis Auditorium Room 36, begin at 11 a.m. with pianists Ronald Morgan, Thomas Yee and Stephen Beus revealing secrets of performing and teaching.
At 12:15 p.m., students of 10 different teachers will perform in ensembles without rehearsing together, and Yee will shape the group into polished performers.
Maelyn Dahl will then conduct a clinic on image and fashion at 2 p.m.
The workshops are $10 each; $3 for students.
Junior high and high school piano competitions will be at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Orvis, with the first-place winners going on to represent Hawai'i in the Southwest Division regional competitions, which will be held in Honolulu in January.
The final event of the convention will be the State Honors Recital at 4 p.m. Tuesday and will feature the winners of the Junior Artists String and Piano competitions.
Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and students.
Court disbars Big Island lawyer
The Hawai'i Supreme Court has disbarred a Big Island attorney who was also banned from practicing law in California.
Kona attorney Normal A. Wessel never sought reinstatement and failed to pay costs of proceedings after he was suspended by the court for six months in 2000 for several violations, the high court said.
Wessel was suspended in Hawai'i in 2000 for multiple violations of disciplinary rules. The action in Hawai'i led to his suspension in California, which eventually disbarred him as well.
Wessel was admitted to the Hawai'i bar in 1982 and is a graduate of the University of San Francisco.
Man pleads guilty on fake Viagra pills
A Hawai'i man has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting and selling fake pills of the impotence drug Viagra.
In a plea agreement filed Tuesday, Seon Il Kim acknowledged that he is "guilty of knowingly and intentionally trafficking in goods that bore a counterfeit trademark."
Kim was indicted in April after federal agents raided his Honolulu apartment and found an elaborate counterfeiting operation that included three pill presses that imprinted the company logo of Pfizer, which produces Viagra, authorities said.
Kim was accused of selling bottles of the pills to tourists in Hawai'i and Japan for $300 a bottle, the indictment said.
He also pleaded guilty to a money-laundering charge. He admitted he transmitted $5,200 from his Viagra business to Greatide Industrial Co. Inc. in China to buy sildenafil citrate, an ingredient necessary to make the drug.
Kim's business ended after a former girlfriend gave federal Food and Drug agents in Los Angeles two samples of his pills, according to the court documents.
Woman passenger airlifted from ship
Coast Guard crews airlifted an elderly woman needing medical attention off the cruise ship Norwegian Star yesterday.
A C-130 airplane and an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter were dispatched to the Star, which was 92 miles south of the Big Island, to pick up 82-year-old Geneva Grover, the Coast Guard said.
Grover, of Modesto, Calif., was hoisted into the helicopter and flown to Kona Airport, where she was taken by ambulance to Kona Community Hospital with heart problems and a broken shoulder, officials said. She was listed as stable.
A representative for Norwegian Cruise Lines could not be reached for information on how Grover suffered the shoulder injury.
