Two convicted in prison escape

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

Albert Batalona and another inmate who escaped from the state's Halawa prison earlier this year were found guilty in Circuit Court yesterday of second-degree escape charges.

Albert Batalona escaped from the Halawa Correctional Facility together with two other inmates on April 4.

Batalona, Warren Elicker and David Scribner scraped away the grout between the "hollow tile" concrete blocks toward the back of their prison cells and slid down knotted bed sheets into a utility corridor below. From there, they were able to force open a door that led to the outside and left via the prison's main gate, which was not staffed at the time of the escape.

The three men drove the car taken from Stadium Mall to Hau'ula Valley, where they were able to evade capture for the next six days as police maintained around-the-clock surveillance of the Windward area and flew over trails and ridges with the police helicopter.

The three escapees ate beef jerky and granola bars they had stockpiled during the weeks leading up to their escape and foraged for fruit in the mountains where they were hiding. The three were arrested separately at various Windward O'ahu locations within hours of walking out of the valley the morning of April 10.

Batalona, 27, was serving a sentence of life without parole for the attempted murder of a police officer after the July 1999 armed robbery of the Kahala branch of American Savings Bank. He and Elicker, 25, will face prison terms of five years on the escape charge when they appear before Circuit Judge Marie Milks for sentencing on Jan. 9.

In addition, Batalona faces another five-year term on one of the theft charges and a one-year term on the other theft charge.

Scribner, 20, pleaded no contest to robbery and escape charges in June and was sentenced in August by Milks to 20 years in prison.

Batalona's lawyer, Nelson Goo, said he was pleased with the verdicts because Batalona was charged with second-degree robbery for taking the car and cell phone but was found guilty of the lesser offense of theft in both cases.

When he testified in his own defense during the trial, Batalona denied a prosecution assertion that he held one hand under his shirt, as if he had a gun or a knife, while he was demanding the two men give up the car and the phone. Batalona said he tried to work out an arrangement with the two men to pay for the car and cell phone before taking them.

Goo said Batalona should never have been charged with robbery in the case and would have pleaded guilty to escape and two counts of theft, but that the Prosecutor's Office refused to agree to a "plea bargain." "This whole trial has been a waste of taxpayer money," Goo said outside the courtroom after the verdict was announced.

City Deputy Prosecutor Jean Ireton, who handled the case, stood by the decision to charge Batalona with robbery.

"This case was bound over for trial by the grand jury as robbery in the second degree," Ireton said. "It was correctly charged as robbery in the second degree and we would so charge it again."

The decision not to plea bargain the case was based in part on Batalona's "dangerousness and the need to confine him in prison for as long as possible for the protection of the public," Ireton said.

Ireton said she will ask that Batalona be sentenced to five years on the escape charge and five years on the second-degree theft charge, that the two sentences run consecutively and that Batalona be given an extended term, which would double a 10-year sentence to 20 years.

She said she will ask that Batalona not be allowed to begin serving the new sentence until he completes his attempted-murder term. Even though he was sentenced to life without parole for attempted murder of a police officer, state law allows him to seek a commutation of the sentence to life with parole after he serves 20 years.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.