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Police arrest city employee in transgender sexual assault case

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  • COURTESY HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT

    Harold Villanueva, Jr., 47, was charged with fourth degree sexual assault Tuesday.

  • JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

    Transgender Makana Milho, 21, wiped away a tear in the law office of Myles Breiner on Monday. Honolulu police have arrested a city worker, who was allegedly depicted on live video late last week propositioning Milho for sexual favors.

Honolulu police have arrested a city worker, who was allegedly depicted on live video late last week propositioning a transgender probationer for sexual favors.

Police arrested Harold Villanueva Jr., 47, on a charge of fourth-degree sex assault at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Villanueva appeared in court this morning. His bail was set at $500.

Police began investigating Villanueva after Makana Milho, 21, secretly recorded and posted live to Facebook Friday approximately 30 minutes of conversations that she alleges were between her and the city worker who was supervising her court-ordered community service.

Milho, who is on probation, had been ordered to complete six days of community service to get a theft charge expunged from her record. She said her fifth day was interrupted when the work-site supervisor acted inappropriately.

One of the videos went viral, and by Monday afternoon already had garnered 197,000 Facebook views, 2,042 shares and 1,350 comments. Two others received thousands of views and hundreds of comments.

In the viral video a man can be heard telling Milho that she can go home early if she will perform sexual favors. Milho, who is represented by Honolulu attorney Myles Breiner, also alleges that the man tried to hold her hand and pinched and slapped her buttocks while she was cleaning park bathrooms.

Breiner said he was advocating for Milho because the judicial system often fails to take seriously sex assault reports from transgender individuals.

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  • Glad to hear this. I suspect that this is not the first time this person has done such a crime — this kind of predatory behavior is often repeated, because the person figures the victims can’t speak out. I won’t be surprised if others come forward with similar stories.

  • The person is Mahoo and not a woman.

    The Mahoo is also a thief and a liar. On the recording the Mahoo set the person up by initiating what he could do for him instead of doing the community service.

    The Mahoo said it has a craigslist ad that explains what he does.

    • Interesting “Defense” if the “Craigslist Ad” is true … now how do you know about the “Craigslist Ad” … Inquiring minds want to know …

      • A “Mahoo” should actually be spelled “Mahu”. Not sure why it was spelled this way. This is the local term for a male who dresses and acts like a female.

      • Actually It’s Mahu, not withstanding the blatant homophobic above. See this from Huffington Post:
        In Native Hawaiian culture, for instance, the idea of someone who embodies both the male and female spirit is a familiar and even revered concept. Gender identity is considered fluid and amorphous, allowing room for māhū, who would fall under the transgender umbrella in Western society.

        “Māhū is the expression of the third self,” Kaumakaiwa Kanaka‘ole, a Native Hawaiian activist and performer told Mana magazine. “It is not a gender, it’s not an orientation, it’s not a sect, it’s not a particular demographic and it’s definitely not a race. It is simply an expression of the third person as it involves the individual. When you find that place in yourself to acknowledge both male and female aspects within and accept the capacity to embrace both … that is where the māhū exists and true liberation happens.”

      • Not to be confused with a Wahoo which is the fish we refer to locally as ono, not ono as in delicious but the proper noun ono. Also not to be confused with Uahoo!, the former internet search engine pioneer now being sold for scrap value.

    • If what you say is true, the defense should subpoena Craigslist records. If the victim has a record of posting ads for prostitution it may help to discredit their character.

  • if it was a cop who did this (and they do)
    he would get put on desk duty, investigated by his
    brothers in 5-O, not charged and we would never even
    hear about it

    • Let’s be clear about something. The original story about this incident kind of suggested the perpetrator was a court official supervising the victim as he (she) was performing court-ordered community service. The court officers do not directly supervise the work being done. They assign people to community service work sites, where someone who works there supervises the work being done. Villanueva was, apparently, that person. He does NOT work for the court.

    • Spoke to my boy and he said looks like vid was taken down. In the vid you can bear what sound like an older man asking for one BJ. Guy was talking pidgin. Then they talk about not having a condom. Not sure if this the same case or not.

      • Some of the members from Stolen Stuff Hawaii recognized Harold Villanueva’s voice. They only mentioned his first name since rules of SSH prohibits exposing the perpetrator by name.

  • So why was she/he/whatever in an attorney’s office?? Why wasn’t she at a police station?? Oh, right, the criminal is going to sue us normal, hard working, non-stealing taxpayers so she/he can sit on his/her a ss all day thinking up new ways to commit crimes.

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