Suspected infidelity
led to alleged threats

A former police recruit is accused
of threatening his wife with a handgun

The wife of an ex-Honolulu police recruit said her husband threatened to put a bullet in her head, apparently because he believed she was fooling around.

Sherly Gomez, 24, a sergeant in the Hawaii National Guard, took the stand yesterday in the first day of her husband's trial in Circuit Judge Michael Town's courtroom.

Ernie Gomez, 27, also in the National Guard, is accused of two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening involving a knife and a semiautomatic handgun, two counts of abusing a household member and two counts of second-degree terroristic threatening. If convicted of first-degree terroristic threatening with the use of a semiautomatic, Gomez faces a mandatory minimum of five years' imprisonment.

Gomez had completed nearly six weeks at the Honolulu Police Department's recruit academy and was set to graduate that month when his wife reported the allegations. He has since resigned.

During questioning by Senior Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado, Sherly Gomez denied that she was having a romantic or sexual relationship with a divorced co-worker and said that they were merely friends.

But on May 30, 2004, her husband showed up unexpectedly with a video camera at a basketball game that both she and the co-worker were invited to at the Pearl Harbor Bloch Arena. He confronted both of them in the parking lot and threatened to blow holes into their heads with a gun, she said. She recalled her husband yelling something to the effect of, "Do you know what happens to somebody who f----s around with a cop's wife?"

She had just given her co-worker a "friendly kiss" on the cheek because he had listened while she confided in him about problems with her 4-year marriage, she said.

After her co-worker fled, her husband yanked her head down by her hair and told her that the only way she would see their 2-1/2-year-old daughter again was if she went home.

When they arrived at their Ewa Beach townhouse, Gomez said her husband pulled out his gun, chambered a round and told her he was giving her one minute to "start talking" before he killed her.

Defense attorney Victor Bakke said the whole incident stemmed entirely from Sherly Gomez's infidelity and lies. "He knew about it for a long time and was sick of it and already asked her to move out," Bakke said during opening statements. Though he suspected his wife was having an affair, he was never able to prove it, he said.

Contrary to what Gomez claims happened that morning, Bakke said, she and her co-worker were "making out" in her car and her husband had gotten them on camera so he naturally was upset and yelled at them.

"But there's no threat," Bakke said.