A convicted serial rapist was ordered Thursday to stand trial on new charges of kidnapping and raping a 21-year-old woman while he was on work furlough from his 10-year prison term for sex assault.
Honolulu District Judge Lono Lee upheld the new charges against Michael Lee Carter, 45, and ordered him to appear in Circuit Court on Nov. 14 for his arraignment and the scheduling of the trial.
City prosecutors also amended the first-degree sex assault and kidnapping charges to allege that he is a "persistent offender," which would make him eligible for a life term if convicted. The life sentence would carry the possibility of parole.
The charges would normally each carry a maximum 20-year prison term.
City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said Thursday his office objected to the furlough, but a Department of Public Safety spokeswoman said Carter had met the furlough requirements, which included being in good standing in prison and completing required programs.
At the hearing Thursday the woman testified that Carter, whom she had never met, lured her to Royal Elementary School by offering her cocaine Sept. 15, a Sunday when the campus was closed.
Once he handed her the cocaine, Carter told her he was a police officer, threatened to arrest her and asked her how she wanted to "settle it," the woman testified.
She said she told him, "If you’re a cop, then take me to jail."
But Carter ordered her to take off her clothes, choked her, threatened to hit her and raped her, she said.
"I was scared," she testified. "I felt stupid for, like, being in that situation."
The woman said Carter fled, but she saw him downtown Oct. 23 and notified police, who arrested him.
Carter was at the courthouse but did not attend the hearing.
Deputy Public Defender William Bagasol told the judge his client waived his right to be at the proceeding.
Bagasol later declined to comment on the case.
Carter was placed on work furlough in June, had complied with the furlough requirements and was gainfully employed, Toni Schwartz, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, said in an email.
She said Carter was going to be released in October 2014, when he completed serving the 10-year sentence.
The furlough program allowed the department to supervise him and prepare his transition back into the community, she said.
Without furloughs, prisoners who serve their entire prison term would be released usually with no job and very little money or resources, she said.
"Inmates who go through furlough are less likely to commit a new crime," she said.
"It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but it reduces the risk when they are put through a gradual step-down program over allowing them to max out in prison (serve their entire term) and leave," she said.
Kaneshiro said he doesn’t totally disagree with the practice of placing prisoners on furlough before they are released.
He said his office doesn’t object to all furloughs.
But when his office was notified about placing Carter on furlough, prosecutors sent a letter objecting because they still considered Carter to be dangerous based on the crimes he committed, Kaneshiro said.
Kaneshiro, a former director of the Public Safety Department, said rather than automatically placing prisoners on furlough to prepare them for release, the department should assess whether the inmate would pose a danger.
Schwartz said the department received Kaneshiro’s letter but that it did not contain "new or recent information to contradict placing (Carter) in furlough."
Carter’s 10-year term is for sex assault in a case involving four victims and Carter’s impersonating a police officer in 2004.
He was initially charged with sex assault charges carrying maximum 20-year terms, but agreed to a deal by prosecutors to plead guilty to lesser charges that led to the 10-year term.
Kaneshiro said Thursday he would not have approved the plea agreement handled under the office’s prior adminstration.
Carter was previously convicted in a sex assault case in 1993 after the former Navy engineer was transferred here from San Diego.
