KEALAKEKUA — Not guilty pleas were entered Friday by a woman and two men accused of attempted murder after brutally assaulting a hotel security guard earlier this month.
Wesley Samoa, 30, of Kona, and Natisha Tautalatasi, 41, and Lama Lauvao, 30, both of Honolulu, each pleaded not guilty to a single charge of second-degree attempted murder filed in connection with the Sept. 17 incident at the Kona Seaside Hotel. Judge Melvin H. Fujino set trial for Jan. 29, 2018.
After entering not guilty pleas, each defendant’s attorney sought supervised release or a reduction in bail for their client.
Before ruling on the motions, Fujino questioned each defendant on their financial status. It was revealed that Samoa is a security officer at a resort in Kona. Tautalatasi and Lauvao are significant others who reside in Honolulu where Lauvao is a cook and Tautalatasi is a caregiver.
Fujino ultimately maintained bail at $250,000. The defendants, who each appeared wearing Hawaii Community Correctional Center orange-and-whites and shackled, remain in custody.
As Sheriff’s deputies escorted the three from the courtroom, family and friends who filled the gallery verbalized their support, telling the defendants “love you,” “bye daddy,” “I’m praying for you” and other uplifting statements.
After the hearing, prosecutors declined to provide an update on the victim’s condition, but confirmed the charges remain filed as attempted murder. During a preliminary hearing held Sept. 21, however, a victim witness counsel testified the 65-year-old man remained on life support at The Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu.
The assault occurred about 12:30 a.m. Sept. 17. According to Hawaii Police, the defendants became involved in a verbal confrontation with the victim but it escalated into the three individuals physically assaulting the guard.
The incident was caught on surveillance camera. It was divulged, also during the preliminary hearing, that the beating lasted more than 20 minutes with Samoa, Lauvao and Tautalatasi simultaneously striking the guard multiple times. Tautalatasi was also captured on the video kicking the victim multiple times while he was on the ground motionless.
A Kona Community Hospital emergency room doctor who treated the victim before he was flown to Oahu testified during the Sept. 21 hearing that the 63-year-old suffered a cervical spine fracture. She classified the injuries as serious.
No plea bargains here please! Show the video and let the jury decide.
The video’s disturbing and infuriating. Think a lot of us would be willing to pull the trigger on these worthless roaches if we could. At this point they are and forever will be a detriment to society, it’s just a question of how much more harm they will cause.
WTF, we are all watching the court on this one…
Nice to see the judge didn’t reduce the bail. Let them sit and think about what they did.
And one of them is actually a security gaurd. thats like a cop trying to beat to death another cop. Just doesn’t make sense unless your SCUMBAG. No dat not us in video. Dat some uder losers.
I’d like to know which resort he was employed by so I can void such a dangerous venue.
Hopefully he has been fired already. That’s not how you treat your own. I guess the hotel teaches nothing about INTEGRITY.
Please convict and give maximum.
Wow still in custody must not have had Judge Nakamoto. He would have freed them to kill again
Can you imagine if some white people beat the sht out of this old Hawaiian gaurd… it would have been a hate crime and vice versa .. but even though it was brown on brown crime that does not come into play even though these people beat an old man when he was already knocked out. I say it’s still a hate crime because these guilty bastards showed visable hate for one of their own.
Don’t know this for a fact, but their names suggest Samoan ancestry… the guard’s — Hawaiian. If so, then they wouldn’t necessarily consider each other to be “one of their own,” at least on a local ethnic/cultural level — some complex underlying dynamics there.
But there was definitely a lot of hatred and rage that came out — disproportionate to the argument that precipitated it, almost regardless of what might have been said. And their stay in prison, however long, won’t do anything to resolve that — they’ll only come out with more underlying anger, and be an even greater danger to society than they are now.
Unfortunately, you are correct.
race baiting trash. bye dummy
Nothing race baiting about asking a question fckface
It’s not race baiting at all. Hate crimes shouldn’t just be about color or race. Have you watched the film? If not, I urge you to so that you will understand. It’s clear that their actions were fueled by so much hate and anger. According to the article, the attack lasted 20 minutes. How do you explain that?
you missed the point dummy. It wasn’t a hate crime because the guard was Hawaiian. wow are you stupid
You must be the stupid one. I said hate crime, not racist crime. This was obviously fueled by hate. Sometimes I forget how simple minded people can be on World Star.
Should lock them up for life, and sterilize the entire extended family.
Hope they never walk out of that prison. Hawaii county judges, juries and prosecutors need to be harsher on convictions and sentences. I could care less if prisons and jails are overcrowded. Release marijuana crimes and make room for the more severe criminals.
they are screwed. at least 15 years in prison. Samoans usually aren’t like this but there are bad apples in every race.
I was almost beating to death in Honolulu in the beginning and this year buy this woman police HDPD in arrived in the scene. And let her go free alleging there was a drug deal going bad what was not true I was jumped by her.