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A Lihue man awaiting trial on charges of producing child pornography
told Kauai police that he had sexually assaulted seven boys and girls over
a span of eight or nine years, according to a recently unsealed U.S.
District Court document.
A federal grand jury
returned an indictment in February charging Michael Terui, 37, with four counts of sexually exploiting children. The charges accuse Terui of persuading, enticing or coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce visual depictions of it.
Terui is scheduled to stand trial in October. He remains in custody at the Federal Detention Center with no opportunity for release on bail or bond.
The specific dates of
the charged offenses are Dec. 22, 2008, Sept. 18, 2010 and Oct. 28 and Nov. 22, 2016. The dates correspond with when visual
images investigators
recovered from electronic devices belonging to Terui were recorded.
Kauai police seized the devices in February while executing a state search warrant of Terui’s Kaneka Street home. The FBI recovered the images while executing a federal search warrant of the devices.
According to a document the FBI filed in support of the federal search warrant, Terui told Kauai police in February that he sexually assaulted his first victim eight or nine years ago, when the victim was
approximately 11 years old. Terui told them another victim was 10 or
11 years old at the time of
a 2010 assault.
Kauai police say Terui told them he sexually assaulted a now 12-year-old boy twice. Terui said one
of the assaults happened in December 2015 but doesn’t remember when he committed the second assault.
Kauai police started investigating Terui in January after the boy reported that Terui had sexually assaulted him in 2015 and 2016. After a Kauai grand jury indicted Terui on two counts of sexual assault, police said there could be additional victims and urged anyone with information to call them.
Terui told police he
assaulted four victims in 2016 who were 7, 10, 12
and 13 years old. He said two of the victims are boys, two are girls. He also told police that most of the sexual assaults occurred in his home and that some of the victims might not know
what happened because
he assaulted them while they were sleeping.
At Terui’s bail hearing in February, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Marc Wallenstein said the FBI recovered more images of Terui sexually assaulting children as they were sleeping, and that the most recent image was recorded Jan. 2.
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