Tour company, officer must pay restitution
Local tour company Discover Hidden Hawaii Tours and officer Leopoldo Malagon III have been ordered to pay $243,707 in restitution for filing "false and fraudulent" tax returns from 2004 through 2007, the state Department of Taxation announced Friday.
According to the department, the company filed fraudulent "S Corporation" income tax returns and annual general excise tax returns over the four-year period, during which time the company earned gross income ranging from $1 million to $2.2 million annually.
Honolulu Circuit Judge Richard Perkins sentenced Malagon, identified as the controlling interest and officer of the company, for willful failure to file the returns. The company entered a plea of guilty and was granted a deferral of its plea for five years.
Malagon was also sentenced to one year of probation.
Discover Hidden Hawaii Tours paid $100,000 prior to sentencing. The balance is to be paid jointly between Malagon and the company. The total amount includes $56,000 in fines.
Paragliding crash critically injures man
A paraglider was in critical condition after apparently crashing in an area above Keokea Park on Maui Saturday afternoon.
The paraglider was reported missing in the Waipoli area.
Maui fire rescue personnel found him above the park at an elevation of 4,000 feet shortly after 2 p.m. and airlifted him to a nearby landing zone. The paraglider was transported by medevac to Maui Memorial Center.
Hospital limits birth registries by geography
North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea has begun limiting who can register to give birth there, West Hawaii Today reports.
In a policy change announced Friday, hospital CEO Ken Wood said any woman registering to give birth at the hospital must live within the hospital’s service area — North and South Kohala, Hono-kaa, Laupahoehoe, Ookala, Paauilo, Papaaloa, Kukio and Hualalai.
He cited overcrowding and reimbursement rates that do not cover costs.
"NHCH cannot continue to serve the entire island, with over half of the babies delivered coming from women who live outside our North Hawaii service area," he said.
Right now, Wood said, 51 percent of women giving birth at the hospital live outside the service area. And while the hospital’s maternal health services is "designed to support" 550 births annually, last year the program’s midwives and obstetrics staff delivered 663 babies.
The requirement to live within the hospital’s service area affects only new patients registering with the hospital and not women who have registered but not yet delivered.
