WAILUKU - A man is facing a 20-year prison term after he was found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a jogger who was accosted on Hana Highway in Kuau.
James Carvalho-Apo, 20, of Kahului, was taken into custody after 2nd Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza announced the verdicts Thursday afternoon in the nonjury trial.
Saying he didn't know how Carvalho-Apo would react after being convicted of the crimes, Cardoza increased the defendant's bail to $250,000. "I can imagine, for anyone in his situation, this would be fairly overwhelming," Cardoza said.
Carvalho-Apo had been free on a $150,000 bail bond posted by his family.
He was arrested after the crimes were reported at about 9:30 p.m. July 2, 2007.
A 33-year-old Paia woman was jogging toward Paia town on the makai side of the highway when she said a man she didn't know jumped out from behind a stone wall and knocked her to the ground near Kuau Plaza.
In closing arguments last week, Deputy Prosecutor Robert Rivera said Carvalho-Apo dragged the woman about eight feet away from the road behind a rock wall, grabbed her crotch and lay on top of her as she struggled.
At 4-foot-11, the woman, who barely weighs 100 pounds, was no match for the 5-foot-10, 270-pound Carvalho-Apo, Rivera said.
"He was too heavy. He was too strong, and he was too overpowering," Rivera said. "He had her pinned. He had her controlled."
Rivera said Carvalho-Apo stopped only when a passer-by intervened and called 911.
Jason Prior, who was among drivers in a line of Paia-bound vehicles passing the area, saw what was happening and pulled over. Prior repeatedly told Carvalho-Apo, "Brah, get off the girl" before he did, Rivera said.
"Jason Prior came onto the scene and stopped what was going to be sexual penetration by the defendant," Rivera said.
But Deputy Public Defender Wendy Hudson argued that Carvalho-Apo was trying to get a better look at the jogger, not hurt her.
"There was no sexual intent," she said. "If James had wanted to harm her, he certainly could have. There's no clothing removed here. The touch on the crotch area was completely fleeting and accidental."
Testifying in his defense, Carvalho-Apo said he had climbed a wall to get a better look at the jogger, not expecting her to be so close to him. She screamed, then tripped or fell when she saw him next to her, he said.
He said he grabbed her to pull her off the roadway and out of the path of cars, then tripped and fell himself, landing partially on top of the woman.
Asked about discrepancies between his testimony and what he said when he was questioned by Detective Rick Martinez the following day, Carvalho-Apo said, "I wanted to tell my side of the story, but he was telling me everything they said happened."
"They said they knew what happened, so I just agreed with them," Carvalho-Apo said.
Hudson said most of Carvalho-Apo's responses to the detective's questions were "yes, sir."
"James, despite being a football player in high school, is not an overtly aggressive person," Hudson said. "He's not a sexual predator.
"He's a typical 18-year-old guy who wanted to check out a girl."
Rivera disputed that.
"Defendant is portrayed as a typical teenager checking out girls," Rivera said. "What typical teenager do we know that goes out in the middle of the night, dresses in dark clothing and checks out a girl on Hana Highway jogging by herself?"
He said Carvalho-Apo had bypassed a taller jogger who was with someone else.
In a portion of his taped interview with police, Carvalho-Apo said: "My intent was just to grab her and hold her, touch her."
Asked why he acted, he replied: "I was thinking about my girlfriend, just because I'm not her first. She's had other guys and that made me want to touch somebody else and not just her. So I thought, just to feel somebody else."
In finding Carvalho-Apo guilty of the Class A kidnapping charge, Cardoza ruled the defendant hadn't voluntarily released the woman. "He did so only after being commanded to do so by Jason Prior," Cardoza said.
Instead of the original charge of attempted first-degree sexual assault, Cardoza found Carvalho-Apo guilty of the lesser-included charge of third-degree sexual assault, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Rivera asked that the defendant's bail be increased to $500,000, describing Carvalho-Apo as "unstable" and an "extreme danger" who faces a mandatory 20-year prison term for the kidnapping conviction when he is sentenced April 2.
"His actions are completely unexplainable," Rivera said. "His attack on a complete stranger was without any type of provocation."
Hudson said Carvalho-Apo has a full-time job and had been free while the case was pending without getting into any trouble.
She said his parents used their home as collateral to post his bail. "He would do nothing to jeopardize that," she said.
* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.
