Former Maui officer sentenced for bribing and stealing from motorist

Former Maui police officer Anthony Maldonado stole $1,800 from a motorist because he thought the motorist was a drug dealer, had stolen drugs and money from drug dealers before, gave some of the drugs to his mistress and sold steroids to at least one other officer, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday at Maldonado’s sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Wallenstein said that after the motorist reported the theft to police, Maldonado lied about stealing the money to his fellow officers when they questioned him about it, implicated his rookie officer partner, lied to a relative to get $5,000 to use to bribe the motorist to withdraw his complaint and lied to his friends who helped him carry out the bribe, including two other officers.

Senior U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor sentenced Maldonado, 29, to two years in prison Tuesday for using his authority as a police officer to steal from the motorist and for scheming with others to bribe the motorist.

Rebecca Lester, Maldonado’s lawyer, asked Gillmor to give her client a break because he was just 25 years old when he committed the crimes, is remorseful for what he did and has turned his life around. She said Maldonado resigned from the Maui Police Department rather than wait to get fired.

Maldonado apologized for what he did.

“It’s hard for me to imagine what I was thinking,” he said.

At the time, Maldonado said, he was preoccupied with his looks but has now focused on character and teaches youth sports.

Gillmor told Maldonado he already got a break when the government agreed not to prosecute his wife in exchange for his guilty pleas, even though there was substantial evidence that she participated in the plan to bribe the motorist and helped her husband secure the money for the bribe.

Maldonado stole $1,800 on Sept. 30, 2015, from a motorist who was sitting in a vehicle at Mala wharf in Lahaina, an area known for drug dealing. The motorist, who is much smaller than Maldonado, needed crutches to stand when asked to step out of the vehicle, and speaks and understands little English.

Wallenstein said Maldonado told others he could tell the motorist was afraid.

Maldonado convinced fellow officers Chase Keliipaakaua and Walter Ahuna, and nightclub bouncer Damien Kaina to bribe the motorist. The motorist accepted only $1,800, the amount stolen from him, and reported the bribe to police.

Gillmor said she finds it shocking that this number of Maui police officers thought that bribing a witness was OK. She sentenced Keliipaakaua earlier this month to eight months of confinement, half of it in home detention. Later that same day U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi sentenced Kaina to two months in jail and four months of home confinement. Both men cooperated with prosecutors.

Kobayashi is scheduled to sentence Ahuna next month.

The Maui Police Department fired Keliipaakaua and Ahuna after they pleaded guilty.