Jaylin Kema pleaded not guilty Thursday in a welfare fraud case.
Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura ordered the 45-year-old Pahoa woman to appear for trial at 8:30 a.m. March 7 before Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara.
Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville estimated trial would take four days.
Kema, who lost part of a leg to diabetes, appeared in court in a wheelchair, a small dog with a service dog vest in her lap. She’s charged with second-degree theft for allegedly collecting $17,000 in public assistance benefits she wasn’t entitled to between 2010 and this year.
She’s free on $5,000 bail.
Kema is the mother of Peter Kema Jr., aka “Peter Boy,” whose disappearance in 1997 ignited a statewide media firestorm. Peter Boy’s father, 45-year-old Peter Kema Sr., said he gave away the then-6-year-old-boy to an “Aunty Rose Makuakane” on Oahu. The alleged hanai mother couldn’t be found and police and prosecutors have been investigating the case as a murder.
No body has been found and no charges have been filed in the Peter Boy investigation.