Ex-officer’s sex
charges dropped

The Maui prosecutor did not want
to risk retrial after convictions

WAILUKU » The Maui County Prosecutor's Office has dismissed two charges of second-degree attempted sexual assault against former police officer Aaron Won.

In December, Won, 25, was convicted of the two attempted sexual assault charges, second-degree extortion and second-degree unlawful imprisonment. Won is scheduled June 2 to be sentenced in Maui Circuit Court on two other charges for trying to extort sexual favors from a woman.

The second-degree attempted extortion charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The unlawful imprisonment charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.

Maui County Prosecutor Davelynn Tengan said her office ran the risk of a retrial if defense attorney Philip Lowenthal had won on his motion contesting the jury's decision.

Lowenthal filed a motion to dismiss the charges because a person cannot be convicted of the same charge for the same crime.

Tengan said that although the second-degree attempted sexual assault charges carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, she agreed to dismiss them because the net effect would be negligible in the minimum term Won might serve in prison.

"The victim feels OK with it. I think it's a fair disposition," Tengan said about the dismissal of the two charges Tuesday.

"In my mind I viewed this as an extortion type of offense."

The incident stemmed from the traffic stop of an immigrant woman on the morning of July 28 in West Maui.