The breakup between fired Honolulu police officer Michael Chu and his girlfriend Athena Sui Lee is playing out in federal court, where each have appeared on marijuana conspiracy charges.

Chu is serving a seven-month federal jail sentence in Los Angeles for conspiring with Lee to grow and
distribute marijuana in her Kapiolani Boulevard condominium and his Mililani home. When he pleaded guilty last year, Chu said

Lee was the one behind the growing operation and that he was just helping her. He also said he tried to stop Lee from growing marijuana but she didn’t listen to him.

Lee also pleaded guilty to the charges last year. At her sentencing hearing in July, Lee said Chu was the moving force behind the growing operation. To try to get to the truth, U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway rescheduled Lee’s sentencing hearing to Fri-day and made Chu available to testify by video conference.

Chu repeated Friday that it was Lee’s idea to grow marijuana and that he told her not to do it but she did it anyway.

“She told me I was just a worry person, I’m stupid, she wouldn’t get caught (because) she’s too smart. She called me a wimp,” Chu said.

Lee’s lawyer William Harrison asked Chu why he didn’t do his duty as a police officer when Lee started growing marijuana.

Chu answered, “’Cause I thought she loved me and I loved her at the time and I couldn’t arrest my girlfriend with her daughter living with us.”

He said he and Lee had a lot of issues during their relationship because “she was a liar, she used me and she cheated on me.”

Chu said Lee went out many times without him and later told him she met a contact and sold marijuana or made an agreement to sell marijuana.

Harrison told Mollway Chu threatened and beat Lee at her condominium after they were arrested in the growing operation.

Chu said he never went to Lee’s condominium after his arrest and never touched her. “She threatened to turn the story on me like she’s doing right now,” if they ever got caught, he said.

At Friday’s hearing, Lee gave Harrison undated photographs of what she says are injuries she suffered at Chu’s hands. She also told Harrison that her daughters, 13 and 7, and mother can corroborate her claims that Chu beat her.

Mollway continued the sentencing hearing to Oct. 8.Harrison said Lee, her mother and daughters will testify at the hearing.

Chu is scheduled to return to Hawaii by then and should also be available to testify in person.