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A state judge Tuesday sentenced a 30-year-old Waipahu man to 20 years in prison for fatally stabbing his cousin after a night of drinking to celebrate the new year in a case prompting concerns about drunken violence in the Micronesian community.
Peter David said he stabbed 27-year-old Santhony Albert in self-defense on Jan. 2, 2010, as his cousin was beating him in the parking lot of an apartment building in Waipahu. The two had gone to Waipahu to continue drinking after a party with other relatives in Kalihi broke up because two other cousins had gotten into a fight over a karaoke machine.
Albert bled to death from a single stab wound that punctured his left lung and heart. His blood alcohol content was 0.25, more than three times the legal threshold for drunken driving. Authorities were not able to measure how much David had been drinking because he fled the scene after the stabbing. He turned himself in to police the next day.
David had asked Circuit Court Judge Randal Lee to sentence him to 10 years of probation for manslaughter rather than 20 years in prison.
Prosecutor Darrell Wong urged Lee in open court to impose the stiffer penalty, "to send a message out to the Micronesian community, mainly the males, who take it upon themselves the idea that they can just drink all they want and not be responsible for what happens after that."
Wong said, "Over the past few years we have had a number of cases that have come in involving Chuukese, Micronesian males … who get inebriated on alcohol and then become violent with their own family members, their own friends, and it involves lives."
David and his cousin came to Hawaii from Chuuk, the most populous of the four Federated States of Micronesia. The other states are Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap.
Oncher "Cherong" Walter, vice president of Micronesians United, said it was unfair for Wong to single out Micronesians.
"It’s not just Micronesians who do bad things when they drink. The jails are not filled with just Micronesians," Walter said.
Micronesians United is a nonprofit organization that helps Micronesians in their interactions with government agencies, hospitals and the criminal justice system. Walter said the organization is for all Micronesians even though its membership is predominantly Chuukese.
Leaders of some other predominantly Chuukese organizations contacted by the Star-Advertiser declined comment.
Victor Geminiani, executive director of Hawaii Appleseed for Law and Economic Justice, said Wong’s comment was a "cheap shot" and insensitive.
"The message it sends to a population in our community that has already been marginalized is disgraceful," he said.
Geminiani is not Micronesian, but said he has learned a lot from working with them. His organization recently released a report that discusses Micronesians in the islands, their contributions and the struggles they have overcome.
Will Swain, president of an advocacy group for Marshallese patients of nuclear fallout, said that if what Wong stated in court is true, then something should be done to stop the drunken violence because it not only affects the Chuukese community, it affects everyone.
"I agree that we should send a message," he said, because it casts a bad light on all Micronesians.
But he said his concern with Wong’s statement was the blanket use of the term Micronesians because Micronesia, or the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, includes not just the Federated States of Micronesia, but also the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Republic of Palau.
In an interview with the Star-Advertiser, Wong said in addition to David’s manslaughter case, he is handling an attempted murder case in which Clinton Otto allegedly attacked another man with a machete last May during a wedding at Mililani Presbyterian Church. Wong also pointed to the case of Frank Sanes, whom a jury found guilty of manslaughter in 2008 for fatally stabbing another man outside a bar in Waimalu. More recently, Takson Krstoth is awaiting trial for murder for allegedly stabbing another man at Mayor Wright Housing last September.
All three cases involve alcohol and people from Chuuk who knew each other.
There are no statistics of crimes perpetrated by Micronesians because the city Department of the Prosecuting Attorney does not track its cases according to ethnicity, said Dave Koga, department spokesman.
Lee said he sentenced David to the maximum 20-year prison term for manslaughter not to send a message, but to reflect the seriousness of David’s actions and to provide just punishment for what he did.
The judge said in court that the root of the evils in the case was alcohol. And he told the relatives of both men who filled the courtroom, "Those of you who are from the Micronesian islands, you’ve come here to start a new legacy. You don’t need that legacy tarnished by alcohol."
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