Source: Hawaii News NowHONOLULU — Honolulu taxpayers will pay $2.1 million to a Waianae man who was wrongfully jailed for drug crimes and ended up homeless because of the criminal case.
Sefo Fatai, 50, filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city and several Honolulu police officers of violating his civil rights. The case settled in November, just weeks before trial.
Council members approved the payoff earlier this year.
“I still have a lot of anger,” Fatai said. “It took a lot of a lot of out of me.”
In 2011, Fatai was working as a mechanic. His boss sent him to pick up money from a customer, Kristine Medford.
What they didn’t know was that Medford had been arrested for drug crimes and started working with police. She said she would help them get others for distributing meth to avoid her own prosecution.
Fatai and Medford met at Pearl City Shopping Center.
Fatai said he asked for his boss’s money and Medford tried to give him drugs, which he refused.
When he was later pulled over, officers admitted they did not find cash or drugs in his car.
Fatai was arrested anyway for drug trafficking.
The Honolulu prosecutor’s office tried four times to convict Fatai. All the trials ended in a hung jury or a mistrial because Medford didn’t show up.
A Circuit Court judge finally dismissed the charges with prejudice in 2018 and Fatai was released from the Oahu Community Correctional Center.
In the years that he was locked up, he lost his job and his apartment, and his fiancée left him.
Fatai walked out of the jail with donated clothes and not a penny in his pocket. He walked seven miles to his boss’s home and was given $100.
Fatai became homeless. He worked odd jobs that he found off Craig’s List and bought a used Mazda truck that he lived in.
Fatai now has a stable job working for a company, but he still crushes aluminum cans to recycle for gas money.
He said the settlement money will help him because he still has financial issues and is drowning in credit card debt, but the money won’t give him back what he had.
He chokes up when talking about the anger he still feels toward the justice system.
“I don’t think it’ll cure everything, because that’s too much time that it took from me. You know, money can’t buy time,” Fatai said.
In a joint statement, the city denied any wrongdoing but said the deal was to provide closure.
“In reaching this settlement, both sides acknowledge the finality and closure that comes from settling this matter short of trial and ending what would have been further litigation and potential appeals,” the statement said.
Fatai’s attorney, David B. Owens, said what was especially concerning about this case is that police never found any drugs or cash in Fatai’s possession, but continued to prosecute him with drug trafficking crimes.
“This was clearly a problem,” he said.
Owens said he hopes the money will help Fatai heal.
Section: RegionalTags: wrongfully jailed
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