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WAILUKU – A Wailuku man is facing a mandatory prison term as a repeat offender after he was convicted of assaulting a man outside a Kahului bar four years ago.
In a verdict returned Thursday afternoon, a 2nd Circuit Court jury found Jarred Keahi, 25, guilty as charged of second-degree assault.
“This was not a bar fight,” Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Teshima said during his closing argument to jurors Thursday morning. “This was a singular violent event that has continued to affect the lives of those involved nearly four years later.”
As the trial got underway Monday, Teshima told jurors that evidence would show Keahi was the man wearing a blue shirt and jeans, with a sleeve tattoo on his right arm, who punched Rene Jackson in the jaw as his head was turned away. The force knocked Jackson’s glasses off his face and caused him to go limp and fall to the pavement, Teshima said.
Surveillance video captured the punch and the scene outside the bar at about 1:30 a.m. Aug. 18, 2012.
According to testimony during the trial, Jackson, his close friend James Kahalekai Sr. and son James Kahalekai Jr. had gone to the Ale House at about 11 p.m. Aug. 17, 2012, after getting off work. They stayed at the bar for about an hour before deciding to leave because they had to work early the next morning.
After going to the restroom, the father and son went outside and saw Jackson, who appeared to be uncomfortable as he stood outside with a group of about five men who seemed to be aggressive, 47-year-old Paia resident James Kahalekai Sr. testified during the trial.
He said that a man wearing a white shirt approached, asked Kahalekai something and got closer as a crowd gathered in the area. “I felt that I was going to get hit,” he said.
After his son pushed Kahalekai away, the man in the white shirt shook hands with Kahalekai and gave him a hug.
Then, “I heard a loud pop,” Kahalekai said. “I noticed Rene was on the ground.”
He said Jackson’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. “I tried to help him,” Kahalekai said.
He asked his son, who had been next to him, to help turn Jackson over so he wouldn’t choke on his vomit. “Then I looked up and I saw my son get hit,” Kahalekai said. “I went to help him. I was hit from behind in my head.”
Kahalekai said he was kicked in his head and body and also saw his son being kicked and punched. He said he tried to make his way to his son but was knocked to the ground more than once and at one point found himself on the ground beneath a man.
“I was kicked in my face, in my jaw,” Kahalekai said. “I couldn’t fight no more. I was overwhelmed and too tired.”
He said the hits and kicks continued. When they stopped, Kahalekai got up and found his son bloodied.
He said didn’t know any of the men attacking him, his son and Jackson.
At one point after being punched, Jackson had started to get up before he was kicked in the face and knocked out, Teshima said. He said police arrived to find Jackson “dazed and confused.”
Jackson didn’t remember riding in the ambulance or being treated at the hospital for a severe concussion, Teshima said.
“Mr. Jackson does remember the pain,” Teshima said. “He does remember the headaches, the dizziness, the fatigue that followed in the days and months after.”
Defense attorney Sam MacRoberts, in his closing arguments, said no eyewitness identified Keahi as the one who punched Jackson. The prosecution hadn’t proved whether Jackson’s injuries were caused by the punch or the kick, which was inflicted by a man wearing a pink or red shirt, MacRoberts said.
“At the end of the day, the only thing the prosecution has is violence,” he told the jury. “And they’re hoping you’re so horrified that you’re going to convict whoever’s standing in this courtroom.”
Teshima said that the kick to Jackson “could not have happened without the punch.”
After the verdict was announced, Teshima thanked the jurors for their service.
He gave credit to “the hard work of the Maui Police Department, especially Detective Dennis Lee.
“He was able to pick up this case nearly three years later and solve it,” Teshima said.
Lee testified that he reviewed the surveillance video in January 2015. He said the person seen punching Jackson in the video looked like Keahi.
MacRoberts said he was “incredibly disappointed in the verdict.”
“I thought it was going to go the other way based upon the evidence that came out at trial,” he said. “At the same time, I respect the decision from the jury. At this point, we are planning on appealing some of the rulings that came out in the trial.
“I feel bad for Jarred. He’s a father, he’s a son. So this is obviously going to be weighing heavily on his mind.”
After the verdict, Keahi agreed that he was subject to mandatory minimum sentencing as a repeat offender who was convicted of unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle in a 2008 case. In exchange, the prosecution didn’t seek an increase in Keahi’s bail.
After being arrested in May, Keahi was released after posting a $50,000 bail bond, court records show.
Keahi also has convictions for felony abuse and first-degree terroristic threatening in a 2010 case, according to court records.
Keahi is scheduled to be sentenced May 10 by Judge Richard Bissen, who presided over the trial.
Co-defendants Kalei-Earl Keahi, 26, and Byron Keahi, 29, both of Wailuku, are awaiting sentencing after reaching plea agreements in their cases.
* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.