Restraining order timeline focus of arson suspect’s trial

The ex-wife of Casey Yoshihiro Asato, on trial for allegedly setting ablaze her Kakaako workplace Feb. 21, 2019, testified Wednesday she tried to get police to serve a temporary restraining order on him.

However, a police officer testified that on that day, Danielle Loughlin (formerly Asato) told him she had brought the TRO to police just three days earlier, even though it was granted 10 days earlier — Feb. 11, 2019.

“She asked me, ‘What if he comes back and shoots up the place?’” Sgt. Grant Mochizuki said. “She did inform me that she dropped it off on Monday and the incident was on a Thursday.”

Loughlin said she brought the TRO to their two daughters’ schools and their doctor’s office, and cut off all communication with him, including setting their girls’ cellphones to airplane mode. The girls are now 12 and 8, she said.

Asato’s attorney, Michael Park asked: “So for 10 days, he’s in the dark? You’re not answering calls, not picking up his texts and putting the kids’ phones on airplane mode so they’re not getting texts?”

“I was scared for my life, so I didn’t know if he could find us” using the phones, she said.

Asato is charged with first-degree arson, a Class A felony, reckless endangering, six counts of terroristic threatening and a firearms charge. Police shot and critically wounded Asato after he refused to drop his handgun at his Waikele townhouse parking lot later that day.

On the morning of Feb. 21, 2019, Asato went to his younger daughter’s preschool, and the school director testified Asato wanted to know where his younger daughter was and why she was not in school.

She told him she may have been out sick, but did not know initially.

“I’m sorry but you’re going to have to leave,” Akiko Miyata, KCAA Preschool’s substitute director, said she told Asato. “I have paperwork — documentation that said you should not be here.”

She said he seemed surprised, but she did not tell him there was a restraining order since he left quickly.

Miyata said she had never seen Asato before because Loughlin would pick the child up.

Asato went to Loughlin’s workplace, Advanced Collision Center, and confronted her, but she just told him the arrangement was temporary.

When cross-examined by Park, Loughlin said she did not tell him about the TRO because “I was afraid of his reaction. I wanted the police to serve him.”

She added: “At that time, I didn’t know if he was served the TRO, or if I was breaching the TRO by having contact.”

He left without getting answers and returned, Deputy Prosecutor Leigh Oki­moto said, with a bucket of gasoline, a lighter and a handgun threatening her boss, Joseph Miao, demanding to know where his children were and fired a round feet away from him into the floor.

Loughlin testified that she was staying at a different hotel every three days with her children and parents, fearful Asato would find them.

She said they married in 2014 after the younger girl was born, and lived in a Waikele townhouse.

She testified that she opted to leave in October 2018 because of the escalating and more frequent fights, but didn’t agree to his proposal to divorce.

The state points to two incidents in which Asato threatened her that led up to Feb. 21.

Loughlin recorded both conflicts at the advice of a therapist and psychologist “who said it was best to document things, so I decided to record that conversation.”

Loughlin said in January 2019, he confronted her when she was picking up the girls.

The jury listened to the heated conversation, held within earshot of the children.

She said Asato told her he is “going to split up the girls.” He would take the younger one and she would take the older one.

Loughlin said she didn’t think a judge would agree to that.

She testified he said: “Do you know what is my choice? I said, ‘What?’”

The recording is garbled at times, but Asato is heard saying, “To let you breathe. That’s my choice.”

In parts of the conversation, Asato asks their younger daughter, “You want to come with me? … play around? eat something?”

After some accusations at Loughlin about being negative, Asato talks to the child saying, “I understand. … love you … Don’t worry … love you guys.”

Asato, hearing the recording in the courtroom, appeared to wipe tears from his eyes.

Loughlin said she didn’t want things to escalate, so she had been dropping them off whenever he wanted to see them, and wanted to go through a divorce and have a judge award custody.

In a second conversation, he calls and instructs her not to claim the girls on her tax returns.

“I told him jokingly I already did that to see what he would say,” she testified. “He just got really, really upset. He was yelling at me, so I told him I was kidding. I didn’t do it yet. It pissed him off even more. He said he was going to drag us out of the house (and) … basically kill me.”

She and the entire family immediately left her parents’ home for the Mililani Safeway.

She filed a police report, but later withdrew the complaint.

Park questioned Loughlin on a number of situations that implied unethical actions on her part, which she denied.