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Hawaii News

Bail for abuse witness lifted

Nelson Daranciang

A state judge has lifted the $5,000 bail for a 26-year-old woman who was arrested at her college graduation Monday to secure her testimony in the domestic violence trial of her ex-boyfriend.

Deputy Prosecutor Klemen Urbanc withdrew his application for a material witness order yesterday because he said the woman has agreed to appear as a prosecution witness for next week’s trial.

However, the woman will not be able to recover the money she paid to a bail bond company to post the bail, said Loretta Sheehan, the woman’s lawyer.

The woman attended yesterday’s court hearing but did not comment.

Investigators for the city Department of the Prosecuting Attorney arrested the woman at Blaisdell Arena on Monday at the conclusion of Chaminade University’s spring 2011 commencement ceremony.

Circuit Judge Richard Pollack issued a warrant for the woman’s arrest earlier in the day because the prosecutor said the woman told investigators she planned to leave the state the day after her graduation and does not plan to return.

Urbanc also showed Pollack a letter the woman sent to a victim witness counselor in March urging the prosecutor to grant her ex-boyfriend a plea deal because she did not want the case to go to trial.

Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro’s philosophy regarding domestic violence is that he will not drop any cases nor cut any plea deals, a prosecutor spokesman said.

The woman’s ex-boyfriend is facing charges that he threatened the woman with kitchen knives, choked her, slammed her head into a door and took away her telephone when she tried to call 911. He is also facing a charge that he threatened a man who was with the woman in the Salt Lake apartment the woman and her ex-boyfriend shared.

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