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Big Island man gets probation for daughter’s starvation death

HILO >> A Hawaii island father won’t serve additional jail time for his role in the starvation death of his 9-year-old daughter.

Kevin Lehano, 53, was sentenced to 10 years of probation and won’t serve more jail time because he has spent nearly four years behind bars, which is twice the maximum term in a probation sentence, Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported today.

He pleaded no contest to manslaughter in April for the 2016 death of Shaelynn Lehano-Stone.

Deputy Prosecutor Suzanna Tiapula argued for a 20-year prison sentence, saying the girl weighed “what she had weighed when she was four years old.”

Lehano-Stone died of malnutrition in a home with three refrigerators that each contained food, Tiapula told the judge Wednesday.

“The refrigerators in that home, your honor, had alarms on them so she couldn’t access that food,” she said.

Lehano’s wife, Tiffany Stone, previously was sentenced to 10 years of probation after pleading no contest to manslaughter and had spent nearly four-and-a-half years in jail.

The girl’s grandmother, Henrietta Stone, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. She was the girl’s legal guardian and had removed the child from Hilo Union Elementary to be home-schooled.

The girl was found unconscious in her grandmother’s apartment after Lehano called 911 on June 28, 2016. She died that day.

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