GARY T. KUBOTA / GKUBOTA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Manden Kamai was sentenced yesterday to 21 years in prison for the May 28 killing of his girlfriend on Molokai. At left was his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Greg Ball.
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Punching death nets 21 years
The victim's family cites her boyfriend's history of violence
WAILUKU » A Molokai man who killed his girlfriend was sentenced yesterday to 21 years in prison.
Maui Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza issued the sentence to Manden T. Kamai, who fatally punched his girlfriend Olakalani Mollena in the back of her head as she was leaving a reggae concert at the Hotel Molokai on May 28.
As a repeat felon, Kamai, 25, will be required to serve at least six years and eight months of his sentence.
The Hawaii Paroling Authority could extend the minimum term of his sentence when it reviews his case.
"You violently and without justification ... ended the life of a human being," Cardoza told Kamai at his sentencing.
"You've been given a chance to rehabilitate yourself. You haven't done that."
Cardoza said Kamai's violence seems to have escalated.
The judge said that, according to a witness, Kamai dragged Mollena by her hair after he struck her, and she slipped through his arms to the ground.
Cardoza said Kamai later created a violent scene at Molokai General Hospital, where he refused to leave the emergency room and threatened to harm a police officer.
Mollena, 22, was later flown to Oahu to the Queen's Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
She held three jobs to support her three children, including two children with Kamai.
Kamai pleaded no contest in June to a reduced charge of manslaughter and second-degree terroristic threatening, in return for the prosecution dropping charges of second-degree murder and first-degree terroristic threatening.
Kamai was convicted of a reduced charge of theft in 2001, after he took money from a juvenile.
Kamai issued no statement at the sentencing yesterday, but his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Greg Ball, said if his client had gone to trial, evidence would have shown he did not intentionally kill Mollena.
Mollena's mother, Huberta, said she felt Kamai should serve the full prison term.
She said Kamai was "very violent" and had harmed her daughter previously.
"But nobody made a report," Huberta Mollena said.
She said Olakalani's daughter has been writing letters to her mother and burying them near her grave.
"She will never have her mother to share in her birthday," she said.
Lauren Naki, an aunt of Olakalani Mollena, said when she pleaded with Kamai in the emergency room to tell the doctors what had happened so they could help her, he did nothing.
"He showed no remorse," she said.
She said doctors later learned that Kamai had run after Mollena and hit her.