A 32-year-old Kona man was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in a violent home invasion last year in Puna and for molesting two minors in Kona.
Third Circuit Judge Glenn Hara told Dustin James Jose during sentencing the prison term is “more than appropriate and deserved.”
Jose pleaded guilty in May to second-degree robbery and second-degree assault. He also was allowed to consolidate sentencing for two counts of third-degree sex assault for the molestation of two minors in Kona. All the sentences will run concurrently. In a deal with prosecutors, a first-degree burglary charge was dropped.
He also was originally charged with first-degree sex assault and continuous sex assault of a minor younger than 14, Class A felonies that carry possible 20-year prison terms.
Jose, 32-year-old Jack Vaughn of Kona, and a third, unidentified man, all wearing masks, reportedly pulled onto the Hawaiian Paradise Park property of Claudine Prados in a pickup truck July 12, 2013, and attacked Prados, her 9-year-old son and the boy’s father, Clayton Mahi.
Mahi suffered a broken eye socket during the attack, which Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Hashizaki said in May was part of a planned robbery committed at “the wrong residence.”
The men made off with Prados’ purse, checkbook and a backpack with her son’s clothes.
Prados fought back, trying to protect her son, and hit Vaughn over the head several times with a meat cleaver. She followed the men outside and hurled a can of pork-and-beans at the truck as it left.
The can landed in the truck bed and police found it when they pulled the vehicle over later that night in Kurtistown and arrested Vaughn and Jose. Jose was driving the truck.
Vaughn pleaded guilty in May to first-degree burglary, second-degree robbery and two counts of third-degree assault. He entered his plea without a deal.
Neither Vaughn nor Jose named the third masked suspect.
Hara told Jose he would honor the deal for concurrent sentencing although his crimes “could easily have supported a consecutive sentence.”
“You invaded somebody’s home; you invaded somebody’s space. Multiple people got assaulted,” the judge noted. “And the second offense, two charges (of) sex assault in the third degree. … You’re invading … an area that people want to feel secure about. You did that twice now.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.