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Thief with ‘horrible’ record returned to prison

WAILUKU – A Lahaina man who had been paroled on a manslaughter conviction when he was arrested for stealing from a store was sentenced Friday to a five-year prison term.

Guy Ideta, 57, will serve the prison sentence at the same time as his parole revocation in the 1984 manslaughter case.

Originally charged with robbery for allegedly pulling out a knife and lunging at an employee at Lahaina Farms in February 2010, Ideta had pleaded no contest to second-degree theft.

Defense attorney Chris Dunn said Ideta disagreed with a police report that he threatened to use a weapon when employees tried to detain the suspected shoplifter. Ideta was arrested a couple of weeks later when police made contact with him and he turned himself in.

“It appears he was doing really well on parole until this unfortunate situation,” Dunn said.

At the time of his arrest, Ideta’s medication was “out of balance,” Dunn said.

But he said Ideta has “essentially been a model prisoner” while incarcerated for the past three years since the shoplifting.

“When you stole $9 worth of hamburger and apples, you basically used up your ninth life,” 2nd Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo told Ideta. “Your record is horrible.”

She said the clerk, who was working when Ideta committed the crime, was so scared that she left her job and left Maui.

“This is the kind of impact you have on people,” Loo told Ideta. “So for the next five years, the kind of impact you’re going to be having is the four walls of a jail cell.”

In June 1986, Ideta was sentenced to a 40-year prison term after pleading no contest to reduced charges of manslaughter and attempted assault, as well as firearms and drug charges. The charges stemmed from the July 30, 1984, shotgun killing of 30-year-old Wade Okimoto in his Honokowai apartment. The victim’s roommate also was shot.

Ideta reportedly had consumed drugs and alcohol the night of the shooting.

Dunn said Ideta has a parole hearing next month and has made arrangements to participate in drug treatment when he is released.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.

***Correction: Guy Ideta’s medication was “out of balance” at the time of a February 2010 incident in which Lahaina Farms employees tried to detain him for shoplifting, his attorney said. The description of the time when his medication was out of balance was wrong in a story on Ideta’s sentencing that was published Saturday, July 20, 2013.

The Maui News apologizes for the error.

At the time of the incident, Ideta had been paroled from a 40-year prison term he was serving for convictions for manslaughter, attempted assault, firearms and drug offenses.

According to stories published in The Maui News at the time, Ideta originally had been charged with murder in the shooting of a 29-year-old man and attempted murder in the shooting of his roommate in July 1984 at a Honokowai apartment. Police said no one other than the man who was killed suffered injuries in the incident, according to the news stories.

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