Man gets 18-month sentence for 175 pounds of pot

A 37-year-old Honolulu man who has a history of avoiding prosecution was sentenced in federal court this week to 18 months in prison for importing a shipping crate containing 175 pounds of marijuana.

With credit for time served, time off for good behavior and early release into a halfway house, John Zachary Katsu Toyofuku probably will spend less than another year behind bars.

He was facing a maximum 20-year prison term and $1 million fine.

The 18-month sentence U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson handed down last week is less than the 24-month term the prosecutor and the court’s probation office recommended. Watson determined that Toyofuku does not have the ability to pay a fine and didn’t impose one.

Federal court sentencing guidelines had suggested a prison term of between 21 and 27 months. The advisory guidelines take into account a number of factors, including the nature and circumstances of the crime and the defendant’s characteristics and history.

Watson told Toyofuku that the quantity of drugs involved prevented him from imposing a lower sentence.

Defense lawyer Michael Green told Watson that Toyo­fuku was not a privileged child growing up, despite his ‘Iolani School and Hawaii Preparatory Academy education, but instead described him as an unwanted, drop-off kid. Toyofuku also has a master’s degree from the University of San Diego.

He has no prior convictions despite multiple brushes with the law.

In 2007 he was arrested but never prosecuted for possessing with intent to distribute three pounds of marijuana.

In 2010 he was arrested for robbery, kidnapping, assault and a firearm offense in what the federal prosecutor said was an attempt to collect on a $1 million drug debt.

Honolulu police said Toyo­fuku and three or four others abducted a 24-year-old man and bound, gagged and beat him until he agreed to lure another victim to a home in Lanikai. The assailants then bound, beat and threatened the second victim.

Police said an off-duty police officer spotted Toyofuku and an accomplice loading one of the kidnapping victims into the back of a van. As the officer was pursuing the van, one of the kidnapping victims was either pushed or fell out of the back of the moving vehicle. The assailants later abandoned the van with the other victim inside.

Toyofuku was the only person charged in the case. The state was forced to drop the prosecution because it was unable to locate either of the two victims for trial.

In October 2015 Toyofuku, after initially giving police a fake name, was cited for riding in a motor vehicle with an open liquor container. At the time, he was free on bond for the federal marijuana case, and a conviction would have been a violation of his release. A state judge dropped the case in February 2016 when the police officer who issued the citation failed to show up for the trial.

Toyofuku pleaded guilty in January to possessing with intent to distribute 79.8 kilograms, or just short of 176 pounds, of marijuana, after multiple failed attempts to convince Watson to throw out the evidence against him.

A truck driver became suspicious when Toyofuku declined delivery of the crate after he suggested removing the items inside it because the truck’s lift gate wasn’t working. The driver, who described himself as a subject of the Hawaiian sovereignty organization Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi, contacted two other Atooi subjects, who described themselves as federal marshals.

The Atooi federal marshals opened one of the boxes in the crate and called authorities when they found that the box contained marijuana.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents searched Toyofuku’s Manoa apartment, and they found material for packaging and selling marijuana. They also found evidence that Toyofuku had received previous large shipments of marijuana.