A state appeals court is ordering the reinstatement of theft charges against a woman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit organization that shelters people in Leeward Oahu and helps them find permanent housing.
The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals filed an opinion Monday ordering a lower court to reinstate three of six theft charges against Laura Pitolo.
The state attorney general filed the charges in March 2015, accusing Pitolo of stealing money from Waianae Community Outreach. The single second-degree theft charge and five first-degree theft charges accuse Pitolo of stealing the money between 2007 and 2010, when she worked for the organization as a project manager.
Circuit Judge Rom Trader dismissed the charges in April 2016 because they were filed beyond the three-year statute of limitations period. Then-Waianae Community Outreach Executive Director Sophina Placencia filed reports with the Honolulu Police Department in 2010, accusing Pitolo of writing unauthorized checks on the organization’s accounts.
HPD never forwarded the reports for prosecution.
The appellate court upheld the dismissal of three charges against Pitolo because they involve allegations contained in Placencia’s 2010 police reports. The appeals court says the other three charges, involving allegations of unauthorized ATM withdrawals, debit card charges and a check written to someone not mentioned in the 2010 police reports, were discovered in later investigations by the state Department of Human Services and attorney general and were filed within the statute of limitations.
Waianae Community Outreach, now known as Kealahou West Oahu, receives about $1 million per year in funding from DHS.
The state discovered during the investigations that Placencia had also stolen from her organization. Placencia pleaded no contest to five theft charges and was sentenced in April to a year in jail. She was also ordered to repay the state $554,541.
Placencia also owes Kealahou $292,000 from a civil lawsuit it filed against her in 2013.
Kealahou sued Pitolo for $762,046 in 2015, and a state judge found in the organization’s favor in August.
