The older of two cousins awaiting trial in state court in Hilo for murder is going to have to spend at least a year in federal prison for writing bad checks regardless of the outcome of the state case.
A federal judge sentenced Claude Keone Krause to 13 months in prison Thursday for bank fraud.
U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson also sentenced Krause to five years of supervised release following the conclusion of the prison term. He must remain on Oahu the first two years.
Krause, 31, has been in federal custody since June.
Watson made no mention of whether Krause will get credit for those seven months.
It will be up to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to decide whether to hand over custody of Krause to the state for his murder trial before or after he completes his federal prison sentence.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment in May charging Krause and four others with producing and cashing phony checks at KTA Super Stores in Hilo and Waimea. The four others pleaded guilty and received prison sentences of three months to two years.
Krause said he had no role in the scheme. In a deal with the prosecutor, he pleaded guilty in September to issuing personal checks from his account that didn’t have the money to cover them.
Hawaii County police arrested Krause and his cousin Kawena Krause, 20, both of Kurtistown, last January in the Dec. 28, 2012, murder of a 44-year-old Hawaiian Acres man.
Police found the body of Dante Peter Gilman on Jan. 18 on the side of a secluded road in the Waiakea Forest Reserve.
Police said they had recovered security video from Gilman’s home that showed Claude Krause shooting Gilman with a rifle and Kawena Krause choking Gilman until Gilman’s body went limp.
A state judge in Hilo has scheduled the Krauses’ murder trial for April.
