A former teacher’s aide at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and the Blind pleaded guilty in state court Thursday to sexually assaulting a student at the school.
Alfie S. Lumabas, 38, pleaded guilty to two reduced counts of second-degree sexual assault. As part of his plea deal with the prosecutor, Lumabas agreed to a 10-year prison term. His sentencing is scheduled for March.
Ten years is the maximum penalty for second-degree sexual assault.
A September 2013 indictment charged Lumabas with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, which each carry a mandatory 20-year prison term, for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Lumabas is legally deaf. Through a sign language interpreter, he told Circuit Judge Rom Trader on Thursday that he made mistakes and had sexual contact with the student between Feb. 14 and July 31, 2005.
The girl was living in the school’s dormitory then.
The state claims that school officials did not learn of the sexual assaults until 2008, when the girl reported them to a female counselor.
It was also in 2008 when the girl reported the sexual assaults to Honolulu police.
In 2010 the girl and her parents sued Lumabas, the state and the state Department of Education.
The lawsuit claimed that Lumabas committed the sexual assaults during school-related, one-on-one tutoring sessions.
The girl and her parents later dropped their lawsuit to join a federal class-action suit against the state and DOE brought by students who claimed they were bullied, terrorized, assaulted, robbed and raped at the school’s Waikiki campus and on the school’s buses by other students.
The federal lawsuit accused school officials of trying to cover up what was happening and accused a former school counselor of engaging in inappropriate and questionable activities.
In 2013 a federal judge approved a $5.75 million class-action settlement.
The state agreed to pay $5 million, and the former counselor, Scott O’Neal, agreed to pay $750,000.
Lumabas is the only person to face criminal prosecution for alleged sexual assaults at the only public school in Hawaii for deaf and blind students.
At least a handful of students have also been prosecuted as juveniles in state Family Court.
