Two native Hawaiian men were sentenced to multiple years in federal prison for carrying out a racist attack on a White man, according to prosecutors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii said last week that Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi, 33, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison and Levi Aki Jr., also 33, was sentenced to just over four years.
The two were originally convicted on hate crime charges last fall for the February 2014 attack on Christopher Kunzelman that left him with two broken ribs, a concussion and head trauma.
Local lawyers believe it’s the first time native Hawaiians have been prosecuted for hate crimes, according to The Associated Press.
“The defendants in this case nearly killed a man because they believed he did not belong in their neighborhood because of the color of his skin,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release. “The law protects everyone in this country from racially motivated violence, and these sentences send a strong message that such violence will not be tolerated.”
Mr. Kunzelman was attacked as he was moving into his new home in Kahakuloa on the island of Maui.
According to prosecutors, Alo-Kaonohi and Aki threatened to tie up and drag the victim and make him “go missing” if he didn’t immediately start packing his things and leave. When Mr. Kunzelman told them he owned the house, Alo-Kaonohi dragged his finger along the victim’s jaw and told him “Your skin is the wrong f— color.”
Alo-Kaonohi then struck Mr. Kunzelman in the head with a shovel. The victim began packing his things to leave when prosecutors said Aki headbutted Mr. Kunzelman and hit him in the face with a shovel.
Those blows caused Mr. Kunzelman to lose consciousness. When he came to, the assailants were kicking him in the sides and one of them said, “No white man is ever going to live here.”
The hate crime charges hinged on the offenders referring to Mr. Kunzelman as a “haole” during the attack, a Hawaiian word that broadly means “foreigner” and “White person.”
