Waianae leaders say law enforcement should target game room operators

A man and woman who pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from the gunpoint robbery of an illegal Nanakuli gambling house known as the Mermaid’s Game Room more than two years ago were sentenced Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway sentenced Makoa K.F. Wilson, 27, to seven years and 10 months in prison, while Jessica R. Lorrin, 31, was given a prison sentence of 4-1/2 years. Under a March plea agreement with the government, the pair pleaded guilty to the robbery, and three drug and firearm charges were dismissed.

“Illegal gambling gives rise to many problems in our community, including violent crime perpetrated by gang members and involving firearms,” said U.S. Attorney Clare Connors in a news release.

Two Waianae Coast community leaders say Wilson and Lorrin were minor crime figures and that law enforcement should crack down on the operators of illegal gambling establishments, which they say are proliferating in the area.

“Three are right around my house,” said Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board member Philip Ganaban, whose family has lived in Makaha for generations. “They’re here and they get robbed continuously. They get robbed by friends or people they know.”

He said the game rooms stand out from the rest of the neighborhood because they’re usually boarded-up houses with graffiti that appear to be abandoned but have people hanging around them at odd hours.

“Why aren’t you charging the game room operators?” Ganaban asked.

He said Honolulu police should be responding to complaints of “traffic, people hanging out till odd hours, increasing petty theft,” and that gamblers also are stealing from garages in the neighborhood.

Earlier this year the Honolulu Police Department raided three game rooms in Palolo, Kalihi and Liliha, seizing dozens of gaming machines. HPD said 50 to 80 such Oahu establishments are operating on any given day and that police shut down 45 in the first 10 months of 2021.

The owners of such properties are given notice that Hawaii law allows the state attorney general, city prosecutors and private individuals to file lawsuits to abate or prevent nuisance activities.

In the case of the Nanakuli game room robbery that occurred in the early morning hours of July 15, 2020, Wilson, who was identified by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as a member of a gang known as Murder Inc. at the time, and Lorrin, his accomplice, entered the single-story residence on the makai side of Keaulana Avenue, one of two houses on a half-acre lot.

The two defendants played video gaming machines before executing the robbery, with Wilson pointing what appeared to be a handgun at the cashier and demanding all the money in the office, according to authorities. When she returned with the cash, he questioned why there was so little money. The cashier then gave him a bag she had been carrying containing the bulk of the money.

Wilson demanded and received the keys to the gambling machines, and Lorrin used them to open the machines and collect the cash, the federal complaint said. The pair then fled in a white Yukon vehicle with about $4,000.

On Aug. 18, 2020, the two were stopped in the Yukon, and Wilson was found in possession of methamphetamine and a “ghost gun,” an untraceable firearm that can be bought online and assembled at home.

“Ghost guns in particular present a threat to Hawaii and are increasingly showing up in our investigations, which we will continue to pursue in earnest,” Connors said in the release.

Tiana Wilbur, Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board vice chair and Republican candidate for House District 45, said, “It’s so puzzling how this (gambling) equipment is coming into our state.” She said she would like the state to better control what is being shipped in.

Wilbur claimed the area has the highest homeless population on Oahu, in part because some homeless people have moved to Waianae from Chinatown and other areas where they are under pressure to disperse. “That’s why there’s a rise in crime and homelessness,” she said.

As for the gang aspect, Ganaban said authorities make it sound “like they are big gangsters, but they’re little soldiers and not the ones actually controlling this.”

“We don’t have huge issues with gangs,” he said. “Lot of these people are just friends who grew up with each other” and got into trouble with drugs and crime, turning to gangs to shelter them.

“These kids need good leadership, good guidance,” Ganaban said. “They’re lost. Their parents are trying to make a living, so the kids fend for themselves and are influenced by the people who have money.”

Ganaban said that historically, Murder Inc. was “a bunch of notorious murderers from Waianae.”

“This is the new generation, people who were connected by family to these past individuals” and later split into two groups.

HPD and Homeland Security Investigations, which investigated the game room robbery, did not return Honolulu Star-Advertiser calls seeking comment.