Leader of Hawaii meth ring avoids major jail time
The leader of a drug trafficking ring charged in what’s been described as Hawaii’s largest crystal meth case is avoiding a mandatory 20-year minimum sentence because he testified at trials against his co-defendants.
U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi noted at John Tai’s sentencing today that he was assaulted in prison and his sister-in-law was shot because of his cooperation. Taking his “substantial cooperation” into account, Kobayashi sentenced him to about eight years in prison. He’s already served about five years.
Defense attorney Alan Baum says Tai and his family continue to fear retaliation.
The case involved 19 defendants, many of them Tai’s family members. They trafficked millions of dollars’ worth of meth to Hawaii.
Prosecutors credit Tai’s cooperation in obtaining convictions against the ring’s supplier and others.
16 responses to “Leader of Hawaii meth ring avoids major jail time”
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Meth heroin opiates all the same. Stay drug free. #JustSayNo
Attempting to save his own skin willing to sell out his cohorts. Nice guy? Probably used the stuff and had his brains fried?
Time for him and the sister in-law to leave Hawaii and assume new identities someplace else on the mainland. Given that he turned on his own family members, he and the sister in-law needs to cut ties with his family members forever.
his family ties will be cut soon enough.
his days are numbered when he gets out of jail..he has to pay the price for ratting out people..the outcome will be death
I’m sure he’s in the witness protection program.
I don’t see any indication of that.
So does he have only three more years to serve? The headline is again misleading, as not having followed this story, I thought that out of the mandatory 20 years, he was getting nothing.
Bra, read for comprehension. He avoided a 20-year mandatory sentence by turning government witness. He got 8 years, 5 of which had been served.
The headline is not misleading.
Its too bad that the main guy gets a break for ratting out the others. Not a very stand-p thing to do but to be expected as they say, there is no honor among thieves.
He will get found and punished. FBI is full of cocky unprofessional people who can’t shut up. They can be corruptible just like John Connoly from the Whitey Bulger case. See BLACK MASS movie now at Redbox dispensers everywhere.
I guess it pays to be a rat and turn on others to save one’s worthless hide but when the going was good he enjoyed the fortunes of his ill gotten gains….selling his poison and destroying lives…..one day his co-defendants will catch up with him……
Hopefully, karma will get them both.
Funny A rat rats on the other rats and doesn’t give a rat’s orifice though it took some courage to testify given his relative was harmed in the process. Have to hope that 19 people in all paid a dear price in penalties and jail time because arguably hundreds of other lives were affected by this drug ring.
The story is amazing: drug trafficking/distribution, betrayal, extortion, terroristic threatening, narking, selling out, plea bargain, nepotism, millions of dollars, lives ruined. I hope that all 19 of them spend a lot of time in jail, and make it impossible for them to wipe their records clean. Make them examples of what not to do. Illegal drugs: Just Say No!
Gee… And some guy in South Korea gets 15 years of hard labor for tearing down a banner and blaming it on his church… The disparity of it all.