StarBulletin.com

Sex offender faces a $2.5M civil judgment


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POSTED: Thursday, April 22, 2010

A 58-year-old former fugitive who is serving a 20-year prison term for molesting a 16-year-old boy in 1990 will not get additional jail time for molesting another teenager in 1993 while he was out on probation for the first sexual assault.

However, Michael A. Stephens is facing a $2.5 million civil judgment for sexually assaulting the second victim.

Circuit Judge Randal Lee sentenced Stephens to five years in prison yesterday for third- and fourth-degree sexual assault and for giving alcohol to the 18-year-old boy in the 1993 case.

According to terms of his plea agreement with the state, Lee ordered Stephens to serve the five years at the same time he serves the 20 years for the 1990 case. Lee sentenced Stephens to the 20 years last August.

After Lee handed down the sentence, lawyer Dennis Potts tried to hand Stephens paperwork for what he said is a $2.5 million civil judgment. Stephens' criminal defense lawyer, Michael Green, accepted the paperwork on Stephens' behalf.

Stephens fled after an Oahu grand jury returned an indictment in the 1993 case. The victim and his parents also sued him in 1993.

Because Stephens did not appear in court to contest the lawsuit, a state judge granted the boy and his parents a default judgment in 1995—$100,000 to the boy and each of his parents in general damages and $250,000 in punitive damages for a total $550,000.

By March 1996, with interest, the judgment had grown to $634,813.

Mexican authorities captured Stephens in 2008 and turned him over to U.S. marshals.