Moana Lutey, Psychopathic Criminal; Next Corporation Counsel?

My fifteen-year-long ordeal with County of Maui criminals started in 2003 when I had the audacity to exercise my First Amendment right to free speech. I had issues with a health fraud store, Alive and Well Health Emporium, whose owners claim, in hour-long radio infomercials, that their vitamins and herbs can cure anything that ails you, including HIV/AIDS, advanced cancers, heart disease and various neurological disorders. 

They also rail against all vaccines and claim their products can prevent the diseases that the vaccines target. Moreover, they illegally accept EBT (food stamps) payments for the snake oils.

I repeatedly complained to the state health department, which is supposed to regulate food-and-drug claims and stop this kind of fraud, but they did nothing. Several people told me stories of being swindled out of hundreds of dollars by the scammers, who fraudulently claim to be qualified nutrition experts, in their free “nutrition consulting sessions.”

I decided to do what I could to expose the scams and perhaps spare a few people financial loss and harm to their health. I stood on the public sidewalk outside the store and lawfully distributed flyers and held a sign. That’s when all Hell broke loose. One of the store owners stormed out of the store in a red-faced rage. He shouted threats at me, and tried to intimidate me into leaving. He stole and destroyed my sign and my flyers.

Then he called 911 and lied to the operator, then lied to the police who wouldn't listen to a word I said. I was unlawfully arrested for “protesting without a permit” though there is no such crime and no such permit. Then I was assaulted and tortured by the arresting officer, who later committed perjury in court about the incident. He was furious that I lectured him about the First Amendment and told him that in America we don’t have to ask the police or the government for permission to express our opinions.

In subsequent months I persisted with attempts to peacefully and lawfully demonstrate and educate the public about this ongoing criminal enterprise that endangers their physical and financial health. The store owners made five attempts to stop me with TRO petitions and a lawsuit. Five different judges dismissed their complaints on First Amendment grounds.

Finally the store owners hired a 320-pound security guard to physically prevent my demonstration. Clinton Myers was 30 years younger and 160 pounds heavier than I. When I appeared on the public sidewalk he immediately assaulted me viciously, broke four ribs and shredded my left rotator cuff, which necessitated surgery and caused me 18 months of disability and constant pain. All these years later I still can’t lie on my left side and I experience pain if I exercise that arm too vigorously. It is a permanent, lifetime injury that may require more surgery.

A passer-by called 911 and two police officers arrived in time to see the thug smashing me onto the sidewalk with all his weight and suffocating me. They had to pull him off of me. When he got up they did not cuff and arrest him. Rather, they greeted him warmly like an old friend, which, it turns out, he was. They wrote up an incident report and let him go while I made my way to an emergency room.

In the following months the prosecutors repeatedly assured me that they would prosecute my assailant, but they never did. No charges were ever brought against him even though two police officers had witnessed him assaulting me on a public sidewalk without the slightest justification.

I filed a lawsuit against the thug and the store owners who had hired him and instructed him to keep me out of the area. My case depended heavily on the truthful testimonies of the witnesses, Officers Samuel Gasmen and Mary Sagawinit, whose reports strongly implicated the store owners in pre-meditated complicity with Myers to prevent my demonstration that day by criminal means. In spite of my repeatedly urging them over several weeks, the police refused to investigate the store owners for instigating the assault.

I represented myself. In case their testimonies would not fit in during the first day of the trial, subpoenas had been prepared and filed to command Officers Gasmen and Sagawinit to appear the next day. During the trial that afternoon I saw the two officers sitting on the bench outside the courtroom with Deputy Corporation Counsel Moana Lutey. I was puzzled at her presence. After all, I wasn’t suing the officers or County of Maui. The county had no dog in this fight.

Several minutes later my assistant left the courtroom to serve the subpoenas. Officer Gasmen was served, but Officer Sagawinit could not be found. I asked Lutey where Sagawinit was. She replied “In the building” but refused to say where in the building. I asked Lutey to call Sagawinit on her cell phone and tell her to please come to the fourth floor. Lutey refused, saying, “I don’t owe you anything.” Her voice dripped with contempt, venom and anger.

Taken aback, I asked why she was being so hostile. Lutey replied, “Because you’re a troublemaker, an asshole and a nut. You’re crazy.” This illustrates the contempt Lutey and the county have for people who exercise their free-speech rights without their permission or approval.

When, upon seeing me and my assistant, Officer Sagawinit suddenly left the bench next to Lutey, she had not yet been informed that she would not testify that day. Though it was late and it seemed unlikely that she would be called to testify, she still should have been available either to be called to testify or to receive the subpoena, duly filed with a copy served on Corporation Counsel, to testify the next day.

A plaintiff’s process server should not have to chase a witness or play hide-and-seek, especially when time is short and the witness is reasonably expected to be nearby. Nor should a process server have to outsmart a crafty witness handler, in this case Moana Lutey, who prefers that the witness not testify, as this would allow and encourage routine obstruction of justice by witnesses. But this is the problem the County created in this case. It is not likely that Officer Sagawinit would have suddenly left the area unless Lutey advised her to do so when she saw me.

In 99.9% of cases in the country, county attorneys (from the Office of the Prosecutor and the Office of Corporation Counsel) work with crime victims, not against them. Why, in this case, did Deputy Corporation Counsel Moana Lutey and her office favor and work for the violent criminals and against the victim? Bribery is high on my list of possible motives for Lutey's wave of crimes against me. 

It turns out that Lutey was there to coach and counsel the two police officers to deceive the Court and obstruct justice. This criminal witness tampering and subornation of evasion of service, was a continuation of the County’s long-established habit of doing nothing to help my struggle for freedom of speech and everything possible to set it back.

Instead of providing truthful testimony as required by law, Officer Gasmen lied and pleaded no memory of the details of the incident, and Officer Sagawinit, with the help of Moana Lutey, successfully evaded service of the subpoena ordering her to testify as a witness for me. These were crimes.

The judge denied my motion to recess the trial until the officer could be found and served. Judge Rhonda Loo also made several other critical errors by excluding key evidence of mine. For example, she ruled as inadmissible hearsay my telling the jury what Myers said before and while assaulting me – that he was hired by Alive and Well to prevent me from demonstrating. This was a gross violation of the rules of evidence. Inevitably, the jury’s verdict in this rigged trial was for the defendant.

The County’s malicious criminal acts – witness tampering, perjury, evasion of service and suborning perjury and evasion – were intended to sabotage my presentation of my case, and they succeeded in that. The County’s policy has always been to refuse to protect and defend my free-speech rights, and to allow, encourage, support, aid and abet the store owners’ criminal attempts to prevent me from lawfully exercising those rights. This sabotage of my presentation to the jury was the culmination of that longstanding policy, and it cost me tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands, in an award or settlement.

The County, having earlier ensured that I would have no protection or relief under criminal law, now further ensured by its criminal acts during the civil trial that I would also have no protection or relief under civil law. As far as the county people are concerned, Alive and Well employees and agents can harass, assault, cripple and even kill me with complete impunity. This amounts to a license to murder. And this was the deathblow, long sought by Alive and Well, to my freedom of speech. To this day I suspect bribery was involved.

The message to me from the County is "Don't mess with us or we'll get you good." And so they did. If you stand up for your inalienable rights in Maui County you can be severely punished.

All of my complaints about this systematic misconduct to the Chief of Police, the Mayor, the Prosecutor and Corporation Counsel have gone unanswered, making it clear that County of Maui condones and approves the policy.

Here, then, are the crimes committed against me by Moana Lutey in service of and representing County of Maui: witness tampering; subornation of perjury; subornation of evasion of service; and obstruction of justice. She also violated her oath of office by failing to uphold the law and defend my constitutional rights.

But they were not done. Meanwhile an unrelated case was brewing and it overlapped with this case. It too illustrates the willingness of the county to commit serious crimes against a citizen it doesn’t like.

It all started when a woman named Maria De Leon hired me to renovate a rental cottage she managed. I worked hard for nine days. On the tenth day I cleaned up and the job was done. De Leon avoided me for two days, then had a tough young friend, an ex-con felon with a record of violence, tell me not to expect money from her. He clearly implied a threat.

I soon learned that she is a notorious con artist especially fond of scamming people for free labor. She figures they can’t do anything about it, which is usually true, but I wasn’t about to go quietly like most of her victims.

Being essentially destitute, I couldn’t afford to file a complaint in Small Claims Court and I had no time to wait for my money anyway. So I started demonstrating on the sidewalk across the street from the restaurant where she worked part time. Trying to embarrass her into paying me the money I badly needed, I held a sign that called her a thief. My actions were in accord with the long tradition in America, including Hawaii, of laborers demonstrating for fairness.

De Leon retaliated by filing a TRO petition loaded with fantastic lies, including that I had harassed her and threatened to kill her. Such petitions, sworn “under penalty of perjury” are automatically granted ex parte, meaning that the alleged offensive acts must cease pending a hearing on the petition. The law says that TRO petitions alleging harassment cannot be used to interfere with the exercise of First Amendment rights, but that is exactly what De Leon attempted here.

However, when I carefully read the ex parte order I realized that it did not actually enjoin my demonstration, though De Leon had meant it to. It said nothing about my staying away from her place of work. It only ordered me not to attempt to contact her and to stay 100 yards away from her home, which was about 150 yards behind the restaurant. So the day after being served the papers I resumed demonstrating, which must have surprised her.

What happened next shows how diabolical this woman is and how stupid, dishonest and venal the Maui police and prosecutors are. Subsequent developments would show that the state prison system is just as bad.

When De Leon saw me, through the window, with my sign across the street from the restaurant she called 911 and said I was violating the court order. I soon heard sirens. When the police arrived she was standing at the mailbox in front of a neighbor’s house, a house that was within the forbidden 100 yards from where I stood. Nobody was home. She told the police that she lived there.

Without checking the address on the order or asking her for evidence that she lived there, these stupid cops measured the distance from that house to where I stood, then arrested me for violating the order. My view of De Leon and the house was blocked by the corner of the restaurant, so I had no idea how she had managed to fool the cops into arresting me. I learned weeks later when I finally obtained a copy of the police report.

This arrest, on June 7, 2006, was the beginning of a 30 day ordeal. On the 19^th day I was beaten by several jail guards for being uppity, then continuously tortured by guards and nurses, day and night for ten days. They told me I was responsible for my problems and would soon be sentenced to prison. A friend finally arranged bail and I was released. My court-appointed lawyer convinced the prosecutor that their case was hopelessly flawed and the charge was dropped. (I sued the abusive prison personnel pro se but I managed a settlement of only $25,000. If I'd had an attorney it probably would have been ten times that.)

The county and state had put me through a horrible ordeal out of stupidity, incompetence and cruelty. The county soon had a chance to redeem itself by prosecuting the con artist whose crimes had led to the disaster, but it refused to do so because that would spell the end of its unlawful perjury decriminalization policy that allows it to operate capriciously. 

Here are excerpts from a letter I wrote to Deputy Corporation Counsel Moana Lutey:

"This is regarding your recent letter claiming that perjury has not been decriminalized in Maui County. Saying it is so does not make it so. You and the county have been lying about the issue of perjury for many years.

"In order for the county to maintain the illegal policy it must deny that the policy exists. You have done this so brazenly that you insult our intelligence. Maria De Leon's perjured TRO petition (and the automatic ex parte order) followed by her false police report landed me in jail for 30 days. 

"The judge who finally heard the case called her a liar, dissolved the ex parte order and denied the petition. I tried for two years to have her prosecuted for the perjury and false reporting that led to my arrest. I was always either ignored or told that the police have a policy of not investigating complaints of perjury. 

"When I filed a lawsuit in federal court over the issue you and your colleague Richard Rost suborned perjury by Police Chief Thomas Phillips, who swore to the court that perjury is investigated and prosecuted the same as other crimes. The time limit for prosecution had not yet expired in the De Leon case, and I continued to urge an investigation throughout the federal court proceedings and for months afterward. But all my appeals to the chief and to the prosecutor fell on deaf ears. And when I requested examples of perjury prosecution the county supplied none. Thus, you and Chief Phillips spit in my face and in the Court's face.

"If the county does not maintain a perjury decriminalization policy, why not agree to my demands? What harm could come from issuing a memo reminding police officers that it is their duty to investigate complaints of perjury the same as any other serious crime, as Chief Phillips had sworn was the case, something the officers are obviously unaware of since they always told me it is the department’s policy not to investigate complaints of perjury?

"Why not remind the public, with a press release, that people have a right to have their complaints of perjury investigated, and prosecuted if warranted by the evidence? To save face you could say that there has long been a misunderstanding about it. And why not tweak the TRO petition forms to warn potential perjurers and to inform respondents of their rights? The county’s refusal to meet these demands supports my contention that there is a perjury decriminalization policy, and that the county wants to keep it and continue lying about it."

The policy is unlawful since it systematically obstructs justice and it is a violation of separation of powers. County officers take an oath to uphold and enforce the law, and they are obligated to do so. The county has no right to unilaterally ignore and refuse to enforce a law duly enacted by the state legislature.

So, add to the list of crimes committed by Moana Lutey: subornation of perjury in a federal court case. And again she violated her oath of office by failing to uphold the law and defend the Constitution.

Here, then, is a tally of Lutey’s crimes and misdemeanors against me:

witness tampering; subornation of perjury in Circuit Court; subornation of criminal evasion of service; obstruction of justice; and subornation of perjury by the Chief of Police in federal court. 

She also violated her oath of office by failing, in two cases, to uphold the law and defend the Constitution.

I doubt very much that I was uniquely mistreated by this criminal. Surely she has treated many others in a similar fashion because she has a deep contempt for the law, for the Bill of Rights and for the average, non-elite citizens of this county. Is this the kind of person we want to serve as County of Maui Corporation Counsel?

This blog post is a brief summary focusing on the crimes committed against me by Moana Lutey. The county has committed many more crimes against me. For detailed accounts of these, as well as more details on the cases discussed here, see www.suemauityrants.blogspot.com and www.mauifascism.blogspot.com.