A state judge who gave a convicted felon with a history of running from police an opportunity at drug treatment told the felon Monday that he’s not getting any more breaks.
Circuit Judge Dean Ochiai told Amery Kahale-Sugimura, “You squandered all of that away. So that’s it. I have no more chances to give you.”
Ochiai sentenced Kahale-Sugimura to 20 years in prison for methamphetamine trafficking, drug promotion, burglary, car theft, terroristic threatening, firearm possession and other charges from five separate cases.
The Hawaii Paroling Authority will decide how much of the 20-year term Kahale-Sugimura will have to spend behind bars before he can be eligible for parole. Deputy Prosecutor Scott Spallina said he will ask the parole board to require Kahale-Sugimura to serve the entire 20 years.
Kahale-Sugimura, 38, pleaded guilty to the charges in January. His combined bail for all five cases was more than $1.5 million.
Ochiai had released Kahale-Sugimura, without requiring him to post any bail, to Habilitat for drug treatment pending sentencing to give him the opportunity to earn a sentence less than
20 years, including probation.
Prior to a 2016 law change, 20 years was the mandatory prison sentence for methamphetamine trafficking and promoting a dangerous drug in the first degree.
But Kahale-Sugimura fled from Habilitat one week after entering drug treatment and, by his own admission, immediately got high on drugs.
“I wish I could have gone to one more lenient program before going straight to that program. Maybe it would have helped me,” he told Ochiai.
Ochiai said he picked the Habilitat program because it is tough and because those who have completed it are some of the best successes he’s seen.
It took more than a dozen Honolulu police officers, including members of the SWAT team, and deputy U.S. marshals to take Kahale-Sugimura back into custody.
In one of the cases to which he had pleaded guilty, Kahale-Sugimura stole a motorcycle Oct. 29, 2013, crashed it, fled on foot and broke into a home in Aiea. He threatened a 68-year-old man in the home, stole the man’s pickup truck and hit two police officers while trying to flee. Police stopped him by shooting him.
Spallina said Kahale-Sugimura has convictions from five 1996 and 1997 cases involving stolen vehicles. In four of them he fled from police or refused to stop. One of them ended after he crashed the vehicle into a pole, and in another he continued driving after the owner jumped onto the hood of the vehicle. In the fifth case he didn’t flee because police found him asleep behind the wheel of the car.
