Benjamin Pada was hoping for probation after pleading guilty to crimes that led to the death last year of Waikiki Good Samaritan Ned Nakoa.

Instead, Pada, 19, was slammed yesterday with a 15-year prison sentence by a judge who said, "The public and society deserve to be protected from you."

The sentence from Circuit Judge Steven Alm was five years more than the prosecutor's office had sought for Pada, who pleaded guilty in March to felony robbery and assault charges.

Pada's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Salina Althof, protested Alm's sentence, which requires that Pada first serve 10 years for the robbery count and then five more for the assault count.

"I object to the consecutive sentences. The state has not even asked for that," Althof said.

Alm noted that Pada suffered violence and abuse as a child, and committed multiple acts of violence and drug use as a juvenile.

"You have had a lot of bad things happen to you," Alm said. "But you've done a lot of bad things, too."

Pada first came to the attention of authorities when he was 3 years old and his mother, Kimberly Pada, tested positive for drug use when she was giving birth to another child, Alm said.

Kimberly Pada was later convicted of beating 4-year-old Reubyne Buentipo Jr. — Benjamin Pada's younger half-brother — so severely that the child was left in a brain-damaged, blind and vegetative state.

Kimberly Pada is serving a 20-year prison sentence for attempted manslaughter.

"My mom is in jail," Pada told Alm yesterday. "My father is not around."

He asked that Alm sentence him to probation.

"I ask that you give me a chance. I know I can make it work," Pada said.

He apologized to Nakoa's family members, who listened from the courtroom audience.

"I'm not heartless. I'm not one animal," Pada said, telling the Nakoa family that he was "on drugs" at the time of the assault.

"I hope you guys can forgive me," he said.

But Alm said Pada had been given chance after chance by the criminal justice system and enrolled in program after program aimed at helping him.

But Pada continued his violent and aggressive acts, beginning with a conviction for sex assault at age 12, the judge said.

That was followed by later juvenile charges of auto theft, burglary, criminal property damage, burglary and assault of a guard at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility, Alm said.

"You were drinking alcohol at age 11, using crystal methamphetamine at 14, cocaine at 18," Alm said.

"In many ways your life has been a tragedy, but that doesn't give you the right to make other people's lives a tragedy, too," Alm said.

Pada pleaded guilty last month to assault and robbery charges, admitting that he stole purses from two women in Waikiki the night of May 17, 2008.

The second theft led to a fight with the boyfriend of one of the victims. Pada admitted kicking and hitting that man in the head.

His co-defendant in the case, Kelii Acasia, 20, became involved in the altercation and when Nakoa, 58, tried to intercede, Acasia fatally punched Nakoa in the head.

Acasia, 20, was convicted of manslaughter in a jury trial earlier this month and faces a mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced by Alm July 13.