Posted at 10:53 a.m., Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Former Miss Hawai'i USA's sentence deferred
By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer
Circuit Judge Richard Perkins granted the request by Limahai's attorney Scott Collins to defer accepting her guilty pleas to possessing ice and drug paraphernalia charges. If she abides by conditions similar to probation and finishes the Sand Island residential program, the case will be dropped.
"I know I was wrong and I'm sorry," Limahai told the judge.
Limahai entered the program shortly after she and her husband John Limahai Jr. were arrested Sept. 14 as police prepared to search a Kailua home. She was held on $15,000 bail, then released to the Sand Island program.
If Perkins had denied the defense request, he could have sentenced Tiffini Limahai on the felony charges. Ice possession carries a maximum 10-year prison term; drug paraphernalia carries a maximum five-year term.
City Deputy Prosecutor Marvin Rampey opposed the defense request for the deferral. He asked that Limahai be given a year in jail.
But Perkins said Tiffini Limahai does not have an extensive criminal history and said she has shown a "lot of insight into her drug dependency."
