A federal judge sentenced former state prison guard Sifatutupu Fuamatu to 41/2 years in prison Wednesday for her role in a drug trafficking organization that imported 400 pounds of methamphetamine into Hawaii.
U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi gave Fuamatu, 42, until July 8 to turn herself in to begin serving her 55-month prison term.
At the time of her arrest in March 2012, Fuamatu was a corrections officer at the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua. She was also a Delta Air Lines employee.
Fuamatu admitted that she used her airport operations security badge to smuggle more than $1.5 million in illegal drug sale proceeds past security checkpoints at Honolulu Airport. She and her husband then transported the money to the organization’s methamphetamine supplier in California. She transported $554,000 in November 2011, and her husband transported $954,075 in September 2011.
The federal prosecutor said Fuamatu and her husband received $6,000 per trip.
When she pleaded guilty in May 2013 to conspiring to possess and distribute methamphetamine, she said she didn’t do it for the money.
Instead, she said she did it at the request of her brother, John Tai, the admitted leader of the drug trafficking organization, so she could have a relationship with him. She said Tai was separated from the rest of his siblings when they were young and was raised by relatives on the mainland.
Eleven others charged with Fuamatu, including Tai, have also pleaded guilty. A federal jury found two others guilty in March last year. Two more are scheduled to stand trial in January.
The only other person in the case to face sentencing is the organization’s California drug supplier, Walter Dominguez. He is one of the two defendants a federal jury found guilty.
Kobayashi sentenced Dominguez in November to 271/2 years in prison.
The government says the organization distributed 400 pounds of methamphetamine between October 2008 and March 2012.