Edward S. Bialobryski, 33, was to appear in District Court for a preliminary hearing today to face two felony charges of unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle. His bail is $40,000.
"The question now is: What will he get?" said Anthony Commendador, Hawaii Paroling Authority administrator. "How serious should a crime be where you lock someone up for life?"
Bialobryski was last convicted on Oahu in October 1995 for first-degree robbery and burglary and sentenced to 10 years. He served a minimum sentence and was put on parole until 2001.
All but nine of his 128 felony convictions occurred on Maui.
He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading no contest in 1984 to 117 counts of burglary and two counts of car theft. He also was ordered to pay $51,124.41 in restitution.
The crimes took place over a span of several months from Nov. 6, 1983, to March 4, 1984, and the burglaries involved break-ins of condominiums from Wailea in south Maui to Kapalua in west Maui.
Bialobryski agreed to plead no contest to the charges, in return for the prosecution agreeing to recommend a sentence of 15 years in prison. But Maui Circuit Judge Boyd Mossman decided to sentence him to 20 years in prison.
But his sentence for each conviction ran concurrently. "So it doesn't matter the number of convictions or counts," Commendador said. "It may look like it's very serious, but you can have someone with three counts and it's more serious."
Bialobryski went to prison in September 1984, Commendador said, and served five years and three months.
When asked why Bialobryski didn't serve longer, "I can't answer that - maybe the (parole) board can," Commendador said.
Last year, the minimum time served for burglaries was four years. The minimum changes every year, depending on the number of people convicted for each offense and the length of the sentences, he said. "This individual served less than six," he said. "It's not out of the ordinary - it depends on the board."
Maui Deputy Prosecutor John Tam, who handled Bialobryski's case in 1984, criticized the action.
"I can't agree with that - I think it's too light," he said.
Bialobryski's conviction for more than 100 burglaries should have alerted parole board members. "I'd say for what he did, that he should have received more incarceration than the five years," Tam said.
No one would have known Bialobryski was responsible for as many as 300 burglaries on Maui if he hadn't been caught on the Big Island, Tam said.
Only after he was arrested on the Big Island did he start confessing to the burglaries on Maui. "He was so good here, he was never caught," Tam said.
He was convicted of five burglaries on the Big Island at the same time he was convicted of the Maui burglaries. He had already been convicted for burglary and escape on Kauai in 1983 and sentenced to a year in prison and five years probation.
None of the property he stole was recovered, Tam said. Bialobryski said he had fenced all that he stole to feed his cocaine habit.
Bialobryski hadn't been complying with the terms of his parole. He hadn't been reporting to his parole officer. He had a drug problem and was terminated from a residential substance abuse program for not meeting the program's requirements, Commendador said.
There was no record of his failing any drug tests but he would disappear because he was using drugs and was afraid he would fail the drug tests, Commendador said. "That's probably why restitution was not fulfilled."
"We're not sure what to do with this habitual type of offender," Commendador said. "We can send him to prison, but unless he looks at correcting his behaviors, the person still comes out the same as the day he comes in."