Pearl City man guilty in beating
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
A 20-year-old Pearl City man faces a sentence ranging from probation to 10 years in prison after a Circuit Court jury found him guilty yesterday of first-degree assault in connection with the near-fatal beating last year of a tourist from California.
Christopher Hicks had been tried along with Solomon Kahalewai, 24, on charges of attempted second-degree murder, before two separate juries.
Attempted second-degree murder carries a sentence of life with the possibility of parole, but the jury hearing Hicks' case deliberated for about four days before finding Hicks guilty of the lesser offense of first-degree assault.
The jury in Kahalewai's case went home yesterday without reaching a verdict.
"We're very pleased with the verdict," said Walter Rodby, the state deputy public defender who represented Hicks. "From the first day of the trial, we've been saying that Mr. Hicks and Mr. Kahalewai never intended to kill anyone."
He said Hicks has no prior criminal record and that he plans to ask for probation when he is sentenced May 11.
Hicks and Kahalewai were tried together but in front of separate juries. Because none of the courtrooms at the state Circuit Court building was large enough to accommodate two juries as well as spectators, the trial for Hicks and Kahalewai was held across the street in federal court with state Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto presiding.
The unusual situation arose because Hicks and Kahalewai made statements to police implicating themselves and each other. In October, Circuit Judge Dan Kochi ruled the two men could be tried together as long as the jury for Hicks was kept out of the courtroom when Kahalewai's statement to police was discussed in court, and the jury for Kahalewai was removed from the courtroom during testimony about Hicks' statement to police.
City Deputy Prosecutor Barry Kemp asked that the two men be tried together to save time and money.
Sakamoto yesterday denied a request from Rodby to keep the verdict in Hicks' case secret until a verdict is reached in Kahalewai's case so that the Kahalewai jury would not be influenced by the Hicks verdict.
Kemp maintained at the trial that Hicks, Kahalewai and a third man, Johnston Kapua, 30, "savagely beat" Ivan Kaloyanov in May, believing he was trying to "pick up" a woman one of the men knew outside of the Blue Tropix nightclub on Kapi'olani Boulevard.
Kemp said yesterday after the Hicks verdict was returned that the three men got into a car driven by Kahalewai and circled the block at least twice looking for Kaloyanov before catching up with him at the corner of Atkinson Drive and Kona street.
He said Hicks admitted during the trial to punching Kaloyanov twice in the face and kicking him once in the neck.
Rodby and Richard Hoke, Kahalewai's lawyer, acknowledged during the trial that their clients struck Kaloyanov, but said they didn't intend to kill him.
Kaloyanov was taken to The Queen's Medical Center with a severe brain injury and hovered in a coma near death for more than a week before his condition began to improve. He remained in the hospital for about a month before he was released.
A trial for Kapua, on attempted murder charges, is scheduled for next month.
Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.
