Newswatch

By Star-Bulletin Staff

Friday, June 6, 1997

Chief dentist says claim
to Brook just business

By touting his cosmetic dental work that enhanced the smile of reigning Miss Universe Brook Lee, Wynn Okuda appears to be practicing good business sense, says the president of the Hawaii Dental Association.

Ronald Miller doesn't think Okuda's advertisements in local publications intentionally ignores the contributions of Armand Chong, Tammy Chang-Motooka and Greg Uyeda, who also performed dental work on Lee.

"My personal feeling is that Wynn is taking advantage of an opportunity," Miller said.

"It's aggressive advertising, but not unethical.

"It's a successful case and, by advertising, he's showing what dentistry can do today, and that benefits all of us," he added. "There's no false claims being made. Not recognizing the team may be an oversight, but I don't think it was intentional."

In a letter to the newspaper, Chong, Chang-Motooka and Uyeda wrote: "As dental professionals, our first priority is the health and care of our patients. Public recognition has never been and never will be a priority for any of us.

"While Wynn Okuda is the official dentist for the Miss Hawaii USA Pageant, Brook had to see him for continued dental consulting after she won this title. However, Okuda performed only a very small part of Brook's dental work. He finished work that we, as a team, had begun approximately three years earlier."

Another day,
another mule dive

It may be unnatural for Ingrid, Smokey and Jet to plunge hooves-first from a 20-foot platform into a 6-foot-deep pool of water.

But it isn't cruel or inhumane to allow the diving act at the Honolulu Jaycees 50th State Fair, a state judge ruled yesterday after a hearing that could have grounded 11 mules.

Circuit Judge Gail Nakatani denied a request by Animal Rights Hawaii Inc. to stop the 40-year-old act.

After hearing four hours of testimony and seeing videotapes of the sometimes reluctant diving mules, Nakatani cited evidence about the good health, positive training and acceptable living conditions of the animals.

"While it may be banned at some time, that time is not today," she said, adding that the act's profitability shows community acceptance.

Youth jailed in cop's
death may be paroled

Eighteen-year-old Gabriel Kealoha didn't graduate with his senior class May 25, but the honor student earned his high school diploma from Kamehameha Schools behind bars.

Sentenced April 16 to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility for his role in the death of an off-duty police officer Oct. 27, Kealoha now hopes for early parole to begin college.

Hayden Aluli, Kealoha's attorney, said the University of Hawaii has accepted his client and offered him a spot at a residence hall beginning June 29. "Hopefully, the (prison) facility will allow him to be there," he said.

Family Court Judge Darryl Choy found that Kealoha committed manslaughter in his traffic scuffle with Honolulu officer Arthur Miller, who was drunk when he fell 33 feet from an H-1 freeway viaduct near Honolulu Airport.

Choy sentenced Kealoha to confinement until age 19, the harshest penalty for a juvenile. The juvenile paroling authority gave Kealoha a hearing three weeks after he reported to the youth facility. Officials say a decision on whether to release Kealoha was expected to be made by today.

If the authority paroles Kealoha, it would have to shorten his 91/2-month sentence to about two months, a reduction that city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle called ludicrous.

"It appears the severity of the offense is being ignored," he said yesterday, adding that an early release would minimize the consequences the crime.

Council takes steps
to subpoena Ewa records

Mayor Jeremy Harris and Budget Director Malcolm Tom maintain that they haven't been withholding information on the controversial Ewa Villages revitalization project.

City Council members are so convinced the administration has not been entirely truthful, they've introduced a resolution giving themselves the power to subpoena documents and records of the city's housing development fund.

It would be the first time in two decades that a Council sought such powers.

The last time was in the late 1970s to probe allegations of fraud against former Mayor Frank Fasi involving downtown's Kukui Plaza project.

Council Budget Chairman Duke Bainum charged the administration with failing to be forthright and timely when the Council and independent auditors KPMG Peat Marwick requested information on the project.

"We've spent a whole lot of money and gotten very little in return," Bainum said yesterday.

But Tom responded that his staff has provided Peat Marwick with everything it has sought.

Inmate transfers add to ACLU
complaint against state prisons

Complaints about the treatment of women inmates transferred to Texas and continued overcrowding at an Oahu men's prison are threatening resolution of a 1985 consent decree to bring the facilities up to prison population standards.

State Public Safety Director Keith Kaneshiro's transfer to Texas of an additional 300 inmates, including 64 women, has complicated a federal court hearing slated for later this month to end supervision of two island prisons, said Dan Foley, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It has created some strain in the previous sort of cooperative relations we have had with the attorney general's office," Foley said. "We have not always agreed, but we choose to try to avoid litigating a lot of those matters under the consent decree.... That agreement now is in jeopardy."

Foley said the ACLU has received numerous complaints stemming from the first out-of-state transfer of female inmates, who were sent last month to Crystal City Community Correction Center in south Texas.

See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Info] section for subscription information.

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Police/Fire


By Star-Bulletin staff

Slaying suspect
faces new charges

An 18-year-old man accused of killing 73-year-old Gordon Granger of the Big Island has been charged with four additional felony charges in separate robbery incidents.

Christopher Wilmer Jr. yesterday was charged with with first degree robbery, attempted murder, and being a felon in possession of a firearm stemming from a May 3 robbery of a couple along Banyan Drive in Hilo.

He allegedly fired four shots with a .22 caliber pistol at the couple. No one was hurt.

Wilmer also was charged with the second degree robbery of a of an 80-year-old Hilo woman on April 27, while she was walking with her daughter in the parking lot of a restaurant.

Wilmer allegedly knocked the woman down with a car and took her waist pack.

Wilmer has been charged with second degree murder in the May 15 stabbing death of Granger.

Other Police/Fire headlines
in today’s Star-Bulletin:

• Police hunt woman in New York case
  
• Man who was sleeping on bench critical condition after prank
  
• Police are seeking the public's help in identifying gunman

See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Info] section for subscription information.