Newswatch
That opens up a host of questions about what will be aired on commercial television stations as well as on Olelo: The Corporation for Community Television.
Olelo broadcast the 47-minute series of video songs on Aug. 10, prompting complaints from some viewers. Two days later, Olelo voluntarily turned the tape over to police, saying it was in no position to judge whether it was obscene.
After investigating, police asked the prosecutor to pursue charges, on grounds that the video was promoting pornography for minors.
In a letter to the Honolulu Police Department, however, the prosecutor's office basically said it did not feel that it could prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the material was pornographic, said Capt. Ken Tano of the Narcotics/Vice Division yesterday.
The state statute says something is obscene if, "taken as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Tano noted that segments of the tape had no obscene material, although four had very graphic scenes of oral sex.
As for producer Feel Ideal, 33, who starred in the four segments that provoked the controversy, he's just relieved it's over.
"That's good news; I'm glad," he said when told of the prosecutor's decision.
The latest allegations against Robert Maurice Fox stem from incidents from March to May involving a 4-year-old girl.
Fox, 56, of Moiliili, was booked yesterday for investigation of three counts of third-degree sexual assault and one count of fourth-degree sexual assault. He is accused of fondling the girl's breasts, vagina and buttocks at his Kaaha Street apartment.
Fox has been held at the Halawa Community Correctional Center since his arrest. He was convicted of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old Las Vegas girl in 1984.
On one side is the Dolphin Institute, led by president Lou Herman, which wants to build a facility to do research on captive dolphins on 9.5 acres of county land between the Kahului sewage treatment plant and Kanaha Beach Park.
On the other side are environmentalists led by Steven Sipman, convicted of grand theft for taking two captive dolphins from Herman's University of Hawaii research laboratory at Kewalo Basin in 1977 and releasing them into the ocean.
The two plan to take their arguments to the Maui County Council Parks Committee, which meets at 10:30 a.m. Monday to consider a resolution that would allow the county administration to negotiate a lease with the nonprofit Dolphin Institute.
The institute is searching for new quarters because the state wants to remove the research facility at Kewalo to expand park space from Ala Moana to Kewalo basin.
The Kewalo laboratory is on about a quarter-acre, where under a federal permit scientists can study four dolphins. The state has given the institute $2 million to assist in the relocation.