Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story!
Former University of Hawaii volleyball player and fired Honolulu police officer Maulia LaBarre is going to jail for six months for offering to help a woman get her prostitution case dismissed in exchange for sex.
After he gets out of jail, LaBarre, 34, will be under federal court supervision for a year — during five months of which he will be monitored electronically.
He has until after the holidays to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence.
U.S. District Senior Judge Susan Oki Mollway told LaBarre on Monday morning that she handed him a sentence lower than what the government asked for because she wants him to get back into the workforce as soon as possible to support the four children he shares with his wife. He has a fifth child with another woman.
LaBarre has been out of work since the Honolulu Police Department fired him in May, and has been unable to pay the child support he agreed to as part of his ongoing divorce proceeding.
Mollway also did not impose a fine or order LaBarre to repay the Honolulu Police Department the salary he was paid during the time he was offering to accept a bribe for not performing his job as a police officer.
He admitted that he looked up the woman’s telephone number on his police computer, called and exchanged text messages offering to help her with her prostitution case. Between January and April 2016 he exchanged dozens of text messages with the woman.
“This was criminal behavior. This was abuse of your power,” Mollway said.
State Department of Attorney General investigators arrested LaBarre in Waikiki in April 2016 in an apparent sting, then turned the case over to federal officials.
LaBarre played prep volleyball at Roosevelt High School, then played for UH in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
72