Ice-cake salesman
charged in rape of girl

The Waianae man remains in
custody in lieu of $150,000 bail

Police have charged a 39-year-old man who allegedly raped an 8-year-old girl last week after luring her from a community center in Waianae.

Yomeo Eieta: He is identified by the victim, 8, in a lineup at Kau'iokalani housing

Yomeo Eieta was charged yesterday with four counts of first-degree sex assault and one count each of third-degree sex assault and kidnapping. He was being held by police in lieu of $150,000 bail.

"He just call two minutes ago. He said he upset because he does not understand English," Asa Repwak, the suspect's sister, said late yesterday morning. "He doesn't understand what police told him."

Eieta was arrested Saturday night after police received numerous calls from people who had seen a composite sketch run by the news media, police said. A field lineup was conducted, and the victim identified Eieta as her attacker, police said.

According to a police affidavit, Eieta instructed the girl to sit next to him on a bench while she was waiting outside the Waianae Neighborhood Community Center, where her grandmother was at a meeting on Thursday night.

The man got up, grabbed the girl and led her away to a vacant lot across the street, where he ordered her to lie down under a tree and removed her clothing under the threat of shooting her, the affidavit said. Eieta then sexually assaulted the girl and fled after he heard family members calling for her, the affidavit said.

Police searched a home in Waianae on Sunday, looking for clothing the suspect might have worn during the alleged attack to test for DNA. The search warrant was executed Sunday night at the Kau'iokalani Housing Project, Unit 301, at 85-658 Farrington Highway, where the suspect lived with his sister and five other relatives.

Police arrested him about 8:30 p.m. for investigation of first-degree sexual assault and kidnapping after the victim identified him in a lineup at the housing complex while some residents watched, they said.

"We all knew it was him," said Pearl Bautista, who organized the neighborhood watch program in the area and who lives next door to the suspect. "Everybody was clapping because they caught him."

"This is the first time that anything like this has happened here involving one of the residents," she said.

Repwak said her brother is a former fisherman from their home island of Chuuk (Truk) in the Federated States of Micronesia and did not live in her house, but slept there on occasion because he was homeless.

She said he recently quit a job at Del Monte and made some money selling ice cakes, a frozen treat, to children for 50 cents after school and on weekends.

"Parents send their kids and grandkids to go buy ice cake," said Deborah Aguilar, a Kau'iokalani Housing resident who organizes security there. "When I found out, I was so angry."

If convicted, Eieta faces a maximum prison term of 20 years on each of the first-degree sex assault charges.