DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Guam police arrested a man last night believed to be Jovie Adora, who had escaped Wednesday from Circuit Court, where he was to be sentenced for sexually assaulting four teenagers. Earlier yesterday, Aurora Adora and her husband, Jovito, pleaded to their son to turn himself in.
‘Serial rapist’
nabbed on GuamJovie Adora ran away during
his sentencing for sexual assault
The man prosecutors called a serial rapist left a number of clues that led investigators to track him down thousands of miles away last night.
Guam police arrested Jovie Adora about 10 p.m. yesterday as he got off a plane that had stopped en route to the Philippines. A Circuit Court judge issued a $1 million warrant for Adora's arrest after he left the courthouse Wednesday morning before he was to be sentenced for four sexual assaults of teenage girls.
Although Honolulu police recovered Adora's car yesterday and also found out that he had withdrawn all the money from his bank account, the real break in the case came from the Sheriff's Department.
State First Deputy Sheriff Cappy Caminos said investigators spoke with Adora's girlfriend, who told them yesterday that she dropped Adora off at the airport.
Caminos said the sheriff's airport unit and fugitive team checked the logs of all flights leaving Honolulu yesterday and found Adora under the alias Mark Adora. Caminos said Adora used a fake ID that identified him as Mark Adora when he purchased a ticket on Continental Flight 1 for the Philippines.
Caminos said Adora was born in the Philippines. The flight left Honolulu about 1:45 p.m. Caminos said Adora gave the ticket agent his cell phone number and his brother's phone number when he bought the ticket.
Because the flight would be making a stop in Guam, Honolulu police notified Guam police, who then got Adora's picture off the Honolulu CrimeStoppers Web site and used it to identify him as he got off the plane.
Earlier yesterday, Aurora and Jovito Adora made a public appeal for their son to turn himself in after he ran away during his sentencing hearing.
Adora, 26, was supposed to turn himself in yesterday after meeting his parents at the bail bondsman's office, but he failed to show up.
"Jovie, this is Mom. Please come in, come in. I love you very much. Don't worry. If you're safe, please come in, I beg you. I love you, we all love you." said Aurora Adora, Jovie Adora's mother, in a tearful message outside Honolulu District Court.
"Son, please turn yourself in. We love you, we don't want anything to happen to you," Jovito Adora said.
Adora pleaded guilty March 3 to third-degree sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault and two counts of first-degree sexual assault.
The third-degree sexual assault stemmed from a June 2000 incident involving a 13-year-old girl. The second-degree sexual assault involved a 17-year-old girl in an October 2001 incident. One first-degree sexual assault is for a September 2001 incident with a 15-year-old girl, and the other first-degree sexual assault involves another 17-year-old girl, also in September 2001.
One of the victims is the daughter of a Honolulu policeman, said Adora's brother, Fernando.
Fernando Adora believes his brother is not guilty of any of the crimes and was outraged when he found out Jovie Adora had already pleaded guilty. On May 15, Keith Shigetomi, the attorney handling Adora's criminal cases, asked the court to allow his client to withdraw his guilty pleas, claiming that Adora was confused and under a lot of pressure when he pleaded guilty. But Circuit Judge Wilfred Watanabe denied the request.
Adora, who had been free on $310,000 bail, disappeared from court Wednesday while Shigetomi, the deputy prosecutor and acting Circuit Judge Faauuga Tootoo discussed Shigetomi's request to push back the sentencing hearing. Shigetomi claimed his client left to seek medical attention.
In a request yesterday to have the $1 million bench warrant withdrawn, Shigetomi claimed Adora may have been suffering from vertigo and is willing to voluntarily appear in court for sentencing.
Tootoo refused to withdraw his bench warrant.
Prosecutors describe Adora as a serial rapist of teenage girls who should be considered dangerous. His family said that is not true.
"He's not dangerous at all. He never hurt anybody. He's not a rapist," said Fernando Adora.
