May 2, 2010 – By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – A woman who could have faced 90 years in prison for assault, kidnapping and other charges was instead placed on five years’ probation Wednesday, with a judge saying she should stay away from unprescribed substances.

In imposing the sentence, 2nd Circuit Judge Joel August noted that Cameron Johnson, 43, has no prior criminal history and had responded well to mental health treatment since her arrest for the Oct. 17, 2008, incident.

That night, she went to the Kaiolohia Street residence in Kihei of her former boyfriend, first encountering a downstairs resident who answered the door. Johnson, who was with a male, forced her way inside and grabbed an 8-inch cleaver from the kitchen, threatening to harm the resident unless he told her where her former boyfriend was, according to police.

The resident took Johnson upstairs and she forced him to open the door to the room where her former boyfriend and his girlfriend were sleeping, police reported. The former boyfriend was slashed in the leg and his girlfriend was punched, according to a police investigation.

Johnson left and was arrested later at her residence.

“This was a violent crime,” said Deputy Prosecutor Carson Tani. “All three of these victims were terrified.”

In a probation department report, 13 factors supported incarceration for Johnson, while six supported withholding a jail or prison term, Tani said. But, he said, “I understand that the court wants to give Ms. Johnson an opportunity. The state is willing to go along with the court’s plan.”

Johnson’s attorney, David Sereno, said what happened that night followed harassing phone calls Johnson had received from the ex-boyfriend for weeks. Johnson also had been drinking heavily, Sereno said.
But he said she was now receiving proper mental health treatment, which would continue if she were placed on probation.

“I got out on bail, and I have not had any problems in two years,” Johnson said in court.

Johnson had pleaded no contest to two counts each of first-degree burglary and first-degree terroristic threatening, kidnapping, fourth-degree theft, and second- and third-degree assault. Given her long history of mental health problems, August said he couldn’t find she was unlikely to reoffend and denied her request for a chance to keep the convictions off her record. But he said she might stay on the right course with constant monitoring as long as she stayed away from alcohol and unprescribed drugs that could negate the benefits of her prescribed medication.

“She’s extremely fortunate to have an army of people behind her recognizing her problems and essentially offering to be supportive and to help her,” August said. “Without that, she would be a voice crying in the wilderness.”

Johnson was given credit for six days she spent in jail after she was arrested. The judge suspended the rest of a one-year jail term for her.

Afterward, Sereno said he was “very pleased with the outcome.” “She has done everything in her power to obtain the treatment she needs and she’s following through with it,” he said. “I’m very proud of her.”
* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.

October 7, 2009 – By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – A Maui dentist who has worked to provide dental care for poor people has been acquitted of charges alleging she submitted fraudulent Medicaid claims.
In verdicts returned Monday afternoon, a 2nd Circuit Court jury found Dr. Wendie Schwab not guilty of all 28 counts of medical assistance fraud.

“When they said 28 times that she was not guilty, it was everything we had said from the very beginning – that she would be vindicated,” said Schwab’s attorney, David Sereno. “She did everything within the bounds of the law, and they charged her anyway.”

The charges against the 56-year-old Wailuku resident stemmed from Medicaid billings for $4,000 to $5,000 in dental services provided from May to September 2003 to clients of Hui No Ke Ola Pono.

At the time, Schwab was oral health director for the Wailuku-based nonprofit organization that provides services to Native Hawaiians.
Deputy Attorney General Gary Senaga, in opening statements to jurors as the trial began Sept. 22, said Schwab submitted the claims for reimbursement for fees and costs that were covered by the Hui. He said some of the claims were for work done by another Hui dentist.

In her contract with the Hui, Schwab was paid $90,000 a year for work that included education, prevention and outreach, Senaga said. “There were no complaints; the work was getting done,” Senaga said. But he said that Mei-Ling Isaacs, who was Hui executive director at the time, had questions when she discovered a billing clerk hired by Schwab was going through Hui patient files in late 2003.
In February 2004, Schwab turned in a spreadsheet showing that she had collected $16,000 in Medicaid fees during an eight- to nine-month period while expenditures totaled $14,000, Senaga said. In addition to paying the salary of a billing clerk and for software and Internet services, Schwab used the money to pay more than $200 a month in health care premiums for the other dentist’s daughter because the cost wasn’t covered by the Hui, Sereno said. He said she also wrote a $2,000 check to the Hui.

“It was always her intent to just help the Hui,” Sereno said after the verdicts were announced. “She wasn’t just doing dental work. She would travel to schools, do oral health programs, check kids at schools.”

In closing arguments to jurors, Sereno said Schwab was a qualified Medicaid dental provider who was legally entitled to submit bills and receive payments. As a provider, she was allowed to file claims for the other Hui dentist, who was under Schwab’s supervision, Sereno said.
He argued that there is no law saying Schwab was ineligible for the payments because she worked at another facility.

“They charged her with making false statements to obtain compensation greater than entitled to,” Sereno said. “There was no law to substantiate the claim the state has been making.”

After hearing testimony and reviewing evidence including more than 60 exhibits presented over two weeks, jurors deliberated for about two hours before returning the verdicts Monday afternoon. Several of Schwab’s friends, who also sat through portions of the trial, were in the courtroom gallery when the verdicts were announced.

After fighting the charges for more than three years and putting her dental practice on hold, Schwab was relieved by the outcome, Sereno said. He said Schwab remains a licensed dentist, but he advised her to stop being a Medicaid provider after the charges arose. “She lives to help the disenfranchised; she lives to help the poor,” Sereno said. “Now, when she gets back into it, she’s just going to do it for free.”
In addition to helping set up the Hui’s oral health care program, Schwab held dental clinics in schools for youngsters whose parents didn’t have dental insurance. She has been an advocate for Medicaid patients and a critic of the program’s severe limits on services for uninsured people. Senaga couldn’t be reached for comment.

August 22, 2009 – By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – A man was acquitted of a charge alleging that he sexually touched a disabled client while working at the Easter Seals Society of Hawaii four years ago.

A 2nd Circuit Court jury deliberated for about an hour and a half before returning the not-guilty verdict Wednesday afternoon for George Gonzalez. He had been charged with third-degree sexual assault of the woman on Dec. 6, 2005, while she attended the program at the Cameron Center in Wailuku. It was the second time in two months that a jury had found the 65-year-old retired Kula resident not guilty of third-degree sexual assault.

After a trial in June, Gonzalez was acquitted of two counts of third-degree sexual assault of another female client in May 2005 while he worked as a therapeutic aide at ARC of Maui in Wailuku.

“We’re very pleased that he had the opportunity to clear his name and he’s been exonerated from all charges,” said Wailuku attorney David Sereno, who represented Gonzalez in both trials. “We’re hoping he can now move on with his life. We’re very grateful to the jury for examining the evidence and realizing he is, in fact, not guilty.”

During the trial this week, Easter Seals employee Andrea Fukushima testified that she was looking for a client to help her with snack preparation at about 9 a.m. Fukushima said she found the client in the library in front of a computer and saw Gonzalez removing his right hand from under the shirt of the client, who was wearing a sports bra under her shirt. “I don’t know if it (his hand) was in her sports bra, but I know it was definitely in her shirt,” Fukushima said.

When she called for the client to leave the room, Fukushima said she noticed that the woman’s shirt was open and lopsided.

Testifying in his defense, Gonzalez said he was leaning over to the client to help her as she worked on a word puzzle on the computer. He said his only physical contact with the woman was when he gave her a high-five.
In closing arguments to jurors Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Michael Parrish said the 27-year-old woman was developmentally disabled and couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

“The defendant took advantage of a person who was clearly disabled,” Parrish said. “Moreover, the defendant violated her while he was in a position of trust, a position of caring for developmentally disabled persons.”
In his closing arguments, Sereno said Gonzalez helped the woman because her teacher wasn’t around. At the time, Gonzalez also was helping a male client who was in the bathroom.

People were roaming the hallways outside the library, which has a glass wall, Sereno said. “If somebody was going to do it, would they do it there?” he asked.

Sereno said Fukushima may believe what she testified to, but “we know she’s mistaken.”
Judge Joseph Cardoza presided over the trial that began Monday.

July 1, 2009 – By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – A Kula man has been acquitted of charges alleging he molested a client while working as a therapeutic aide for people with developmental disabilities four years ago.

A 2nd Circuit Court jury deliberated for much of the day Friday before returning not-guilty verdicts for 65-year-old George Gonzalez.

“We were pleased that the jury carefully considered the evidence,” said defense attorney David Sereno. “They obviously spent six hours pondering the testimony, the physical evidence, and reached a just conclusion and exonerated my client from these heinous allegations.” Gonzalez had been charged with two counts of third-degree sexual assault of a woman who suffers from severe cerebral palsy. She was unable to testify.

But Miles Lopes said he saw Gonzalez fondle the woman the morning of May 5, 2005, while both were in an enclosed lanai at Mana House, run by ARC of Maui, on Kanaloa Avenue in Wailuku.
Lopes was parked in the area, having gone to the facility to pick up car keys from his then-wife, who was working an overnight shift there.

In closing arguments to jurors Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Michael Parrish said Gonzalez wasn’t supposed to have contact with the disabled woman, who was a client in a different program from the one that he worked in.

But Parrish said Gonzalez had been showing up early, sometimes two hours before his work shift, to give the woman “special attention.”

“The defendant was there to help vulnerable people who were disabled,” Parrish said. “Instead, he committed a horrific, deviant and despicable crime.” But Sereno said it was Gonzalez who was innocent and faced “the horror of being accused of a crime he didn’t commit.” Gonzalez was trying to help the woman walk, Sereno said, and in fact, had been seen walking with her that morning.
Sereno argued that Lopes was motivated by anger and jealousy when he reported seeing Gonzalez molest the woman.

Re-creations done by ARC officials and others who investigated the report called into question whether Lopes could have had a clear view of what was happening from his parked truck, Sereno said. He said Lopes would have had to look through fence pickets and tables that others said they couldn’t see under.

Maui police Detective Derek Lee, who questioned Gonzalez a month later, said the defendant reported he had been helping the woman adjust her clothing and secure the button on her pants. Gonzalez said he didn’t put his hands under the woman’s clothing, as was reported, Lee testified. “I’m very appreciative to the jury, as they obviously gave their verdict a lot of thought,” Parrish said afterward. “It was a difficult case from the state’s perspective because there were three entities that investigated the allegations and found them either inconclusive or to not be true.”

An Aug. 17 trial is scheduled for Gonzalez on another charge of third-degree sexual assault in a December 2005 incident involving another disabled woman at a different location.

January 27, 2006

By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer of Maui News

WAILUKU – A man has been acquitted of charges alleging he assaulted and threatened police officers as they tried to arrest him at a Kihei residence. Mark Crews, 41, also was found not guilty of abusing his fiancee.

“We’re happy that the jury deliberated conscientiously and reached a just verdict,” said defense attorney David Sereno. A 2nd Circuit Court jury returned the verdicts Wednesday afternoon.

Crews was found not guilty of abuse, resisting arrest, first- and second-degree assault against a law enforcement officer and first-degree terroristic threatening. He was arrested after police were sent to the residence on Oe Street on Sept. 6, 2004, after someone called 911 from the home but hung up without speaking. Kihei patrol officers Jamie Wright and Bryan Manlapao testified that they saw Crews holding a child while carrying items to a car in the driveway. After finding Crews’ fiancee, Joan Tapuro, crying and bleeding from a scratch on her nose, an officer told Crews to give her their 1-year-old son. Told he was being arrested for abuse, Crews resisted, the officers testified.

The officers said they were pushed by Crews while standing near the doorway, with Manlapao tripping and falling over a television set inside to land a couple of steps below on the living room floor. Wright and Crews also ended up on the floor.

Both officers said they heard Crews say, “Let me go or I’ll kill you” while struggling with the officers.

Wright said he bruised his hand while blocking a punch from Crews. Manlapao said he had a bruised shoulder and pain from being kneed in the chest by Crews as the defendant lay on his side on the ground.

After a struggle that lasted three to four minutes, Wright said he used a neck restraint to subdue Crews so the officers could handcuff him.

During closing arguments to jurors Wednesday, Sereno said the two officers gave different details about what happened in the home.

While Wright said he grabbed and flipped Crews to land on the floor, Manlapao said each officer was grabbing one of Crews’ hands when all three ended up on the ground, Sereno said.

Manlapao said another man at the home helped restrain Crews by his feet, although Wright made no mention of the “mystery man,” Sereno said.  “None of this has any believability because none of it is consistent,” Sereno said. “It’s almost hard to believe that they’re talking about the same incident.” Deputy Prosecutor Jerrie Sheppard said each officer was focused on his own actions and described what he remembered of the incident that occurred nearly a year and a half earlier. “Both officers’ demeanor indicated they testified truthfully,” she said during her closing arguments. “Both officers were doing their jobs the best they could.” Judge Joseph Cardoza presided over the trial.