Waikiki man found guilty
of harming his infant son
A 32-year-old Waikiki man was found guilty yesterday of shaking and striking his 6-month-old son over a two-day period in April 2002, seriously injuring the infant.
A Circuit Court jury convicted Anthony Chatman of second-degree attempted murder for assaulting Taison Suzuki at a Waikiki hotel, allegedly because the infant would not stop crying.
Chatman was also convicted of bribing and intimidating a witness and extortion to force the baby's mother, Asahi Suzuki, into recanting statements she made to police blaming him for the injuries.
The baby sustained serious and permanent brain damage, resulting in the loss of vision in one eye and half of vision in the other, but survived, said Deputy Prosecutor Dan Oyasato. The child has since been reunited with his mother and lives with her in Japan.
Suzuki testified that on two consecutive nights, Chatman flipped Taison onto the hotel bed and pressed his face into the covers for a short while before flipping him back over. She also saw him strike the baby in the abdomen at least once.
She admitted she did nothing to stop Chatman from harming her baby. She testified she fled the room on both occasions because she did not feel she was capable of stopping him and did not want to anger him further.
Chatman also testified and denied doing any of the things that Suzuki alleged. He also suggested the baby was not his.
Defense attorney Chester Kanai had argued that Suzuki was to blame for the baby's injuries and for not seeking medical care.
Chatman faces a life term with the possibility of parole, with a mandatory 15 years under a statute governing crimes against children. He will be sentenced Sept. 15 before Circuit Judge Karen Ahn.