Posted on: Friday, December 10, 2004

Lincoln given five years in prison for violating parole

Advertiser Staff

John Kalani Lincoln, who was released from federal prison this year, will now have to serve five more years behind bars for violating the conditions of his supervisory release.

Lincoln, 59, who has a long criminal history that included spending 13 years in state prison for a 1978 double murder on Maui before he was acquitted in 1992 after three trials, was placed on furlough in January and supervisory release in June after serving a federal term for firearm and drug offenses.

Lincoln had been sentenced in 1994 to a term of 11 1/4 years.

Lincoln was arrested last week and given the five-year sentence Monday by U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor. Assistant U.S. attorney Tom Brady said the violations included Lincoln testing positive for morphine, methamphetamine and codeine and associating with known felons.

Lincoln's attorney, Eric Seitz, said his client had been working on various jobs since his release and got married in October. Seitz recommended that Lincoln be placed in a residential drug rehabilitation program.

Seitz said the federal guidelines call for a sentence of 12 to 16 months. He called Gillmor's five-year sentence a "gross miscarriage of justice." Brady had recommended a five-year sentence.

Lincoln was sentenced to the federal term in 1994 after pleading guilty to federal charges of possessing and distributing crystal methamphetamine and having loaded firearms on three occasions in 1992 and 1993.