Waipahu man
guilty of slavery

Lueleni Fetongi Maka was
accused of luring Tongans here
and forcing them to work

A jury convicted a Waipahu businessman yesterday of smuggling Tongan workers to Hawaii and forcing them into involuntary servitude in a case prosecutors likened to "modern-day slavery."

Lueleni Fetongi Maka, 52, was found guilty of human trafficking, involuntary servitude, forced labor, alien harboring, alien smuggling and unlawful use of documents. The crimes carry sentences of up to 20 years.

Maka was accused of luring seven Tongan men to Hawaii with promises of a better life and then forcing them to work for his landscaping businesses, housing them in squalid conditions, and controlling them with beatings and threats of deportation.

Maka, a Tongan citizen who is a permanent U.S. resident, showed no emotion as the verdict was read. The jury found him guilty of 34 counts and acquitted him of one count, which involved unlawful use of documents.

Clad in an aloha shirt and beige slacks, with a crocheted wrap around his hips Tongan-style, Maka said nothing before being led away. The verdict came on the fifth day of deliberations.

"Obviously, we were disappointed," said William Domingo, an assistant federal public defender representing Maka, adding that he appreciated the time the jury took to reach a verdict.

The defense had tried to persuade the jury that the workers were willing to endure tough conditions so they could send money back home to support their families.

"They stayed here of their own volition," Domingo argued. "It was a bad situation, a bad employer, but not human trafficking."

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Shipley declined to comment on the verdict yesterday because the case is still pending. Jurors will return to U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway's courtroom tomorrow for the second stage of the trial, expected to last a day, when they will be asked to reach factual findings relating to sentencing.

During the trial, prosecutors said the Tongan workers, in their teens and 20s, lived in a shack on a pig farm in Nanakuli and worked from sunrise to sunset, building rock walls and trimming trees.

Maka controlled their movements and in some cases beat them so severely that they could not work for a week because of their injuries, Shipley said. They were paid between $100 and $200 a week, and sometimes not at all, he said.