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A former Waianae High School star quarterback will spend up to 20 years behind bars for the 2017 death of friend Troy Kahooilihala Jr., 21, who was a backseat passenger in the car he was driving while drunk at speeds up to 100 mph along Farrington Highway at the time of the crash.
Circuit Judge Paul Wong sentenced Puletua Wilson, who was 24 at the time of the Oct. 5, 2017, crash in Keaau, this morning to 20 years imprisonment.
A jury of 10 women and two men found on July 28 the 29-year-old guilty of manslaughter, a Class A felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Prior to the judge’s handing down the sentence, the families of both Kahooilihala and Wilson delivered highly emotional statements in hopes of swaying the judge’s decision for either a maximum sentence or probation, depending on which family they were from.
At least eight deputy sheriffs were positioned in and outside the courtroom as emotions ran high.
Wilson had been allowed to remain free on $100,000 bond since his Dec. 11, 2018, indictment until his sentencing today when he was taken into custody.
Jurors were given the option of lesser charges of varying degrees of negligent homicide and lesser crimes, the judge noted.
Deputy Prosecutor Anna Ishikawa said at trial that Wilson was speeding at a rate of 100 mph when he crashed the Toyota Avalon he was driving, causing it to go airborne and flip over multiple times landing on the sand 200 feet from the parked truck he struck.
Kahooilihala was thrown 60 feet from where the Toyota sedan ended up and struck his head on rocks along the shoreline.
Witnesses testified Wilson had been drinking with friends at the Waianae Boat Harbor hours before the crash. They moved the party to a different location, where he continued to drink, then drove his friend’s car, despite protests from a few friends that he was too drunk.
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