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Officer to be
By Debra Barayuga
sentenced over
beating of man
in police custody
Star-BulletinA 32-year-old police officer who pleaded guilty to civil-rights violations faces up to a year in prison in connection with the beating of a man in police custody.
Officer William Duarte was expected to be sentenced today in U.S. District Court stemming from charges relating to the beating of former prison guard Richard Doolin at the main police station in August 1995.
Duarte's attorney, William Harrison, is seeking a sentence at the lower end of sentencing guidelines based on his vulnerability to prison abuse as a police officer.
If he is sentenced to a year or less, Harrison said he will ask that the court recommend to the Federal Bureau of Prisons that Duarte serve his time at a halfway house here.
Under a plea agreement, Duarte pleaded guilty last June to two misdemeanor counts of failing to act and covering up the beating.
Duarte has "adamantly denied" striking Doolin but admitted to failing to protect Doolin when he arrived at the main police cellblock and for obstructing the investigation after the incident occurred, Harrison said.
Doolin has never identified Duarte as one of the officers that beat him. Duarte pulled another officer off Doolin and was the unidentified officer who yelled for other officers to stop, Harrison said.
Duarte, unlike another officer who pleaded guilty, has cooperated with the investigation, and chose to "break the blue code of silence," Harrison wrote in a sentencing statement.
Duarte contends he is being shunned by fellow officers and faces retaliation for his cooperation with federal authorities.
The U.S. Department of Justice has recommended that Duarte receive the statutory maximum of 12 months.
The government disputes Duarte's argument that he is vulnerable to prison violence as a police officer.
Duarte does not face "extraordinary notoriety" that would make him more susceptible to prison abuse than any other police officer convicted of the same offense, wrote attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department.
Since there is no federal prison in Hawaii, Duarte will likely be sent to a mainland prison, "most likely in relative obscurity and relative anonymity," wrote Gerard Hogan and Sheryl Robinson, attorneys in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Duarte has been stripped of his police powers -- meaning he doesn't carry a gun -- and is on desk duty.
Four other police officers, A.C. Brown, George DeRamos, Jesse Nozawa and Brian Punzal await trial in September for Doolin's beating.
Another officer, David Chun, was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison last November after pleading guilty to beating Doolin and later conspiring with other officers to cover up the beating.
