The state Attorney General Department says acquitted killer Randall Saito used the personal information of Alvin Clayton Pimento to flee from Oahu to California.
An Oahu grand jury returned a new indictment Thursday against Saito charging him with four counts of identity theft and one of escape. Each identity theft charge is a Class A felony punishable by a mandatory 20-year prison term. The escape charge is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
The indictment accuses Saito, 59, of using Pimento’s personal information on Oct. 17 and Nov. 7, 11 and 12, the day Saito walked off Hawaii State Hospital grounds.
Deputy Attorney General Kory Young told a state judge Thursday that Saito used Pimento’s identity “in order to book flights from Oahu to Maui and then from Maui to San Jose, California.”
Circuit Judge Colette Garibaldi set a $500,000 cash-only bail for Saito. That’s the same bail she imposed after another grand jury returned an indictment in November charging Saito with just escape. Young told Garibaldi he had already filed papers to dismiss the first indictment.
When deputy sheriffs in California captured Saito in Stockton on Nov. 15, they recovered a Washington state driver’s license and an Illinois driver’s license with his picture on it but with two other names. Saito called them “pretty good” fake IDs. The deputies did not recover any identification that contained Pimento’s personal information.
Identity theft involves the improper use of the personal information of an actual person. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser was not able to reach Pimento for comment.
Garibaldi had found Saito mentally fit last month to stand trial for escape and had set a trial date in June. She will likely set a new trial date for the escape and identity theft.
Saito had been in the State Hospital since 1981, after being acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. Police said Sandra Yamashiro, 29, had been shot with a pellet gun in 1979 then repeatedly stabbed. Her body was found in the Ala Moana Center parking lot. Saito was diagnosed with sexual sadism and necrophilia.
Star-Advertiser reporter Tim Hurley contributed to this report.
