No-contest plea entered
in theft of car with baby

The suspect did not mean to take a child
and feels remorseful, his attorney says

A Kalihi man who stole a car from a Liliha restaurant and abandoned it after discovering a baby in the back seat has pleaded no contest to several charges.

Tema Tema, 26, entered his pleas yesterday before Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto. He was to go to trial Monday on charges including auto theft, unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle and endangering the welfare of a minor.

Deputy public defender Walter Rodby said Tema changed his plea because he is remorseful and has taken responsibility since he confessed to police following his April 19 arrest.

"It's one thing to read the typed version of his confession, but when you listen to the actual tape and hear him crying and in tears, he's asking for forgiveness," Rodby said.

"He was very remorseful -- insisting he didn't know the baby was in the car when he stole the car."

Tema never meant to endanger the child and was not thinking straight when he fled after abandoning the car in a shady area on nearby Puuhue Street with the car windows rolled up, Rodby said. Tema later told police that he had realized he had left the windows up but kept running because he was afraid.

Tema faces five years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of one year and eight months as a repeat offender. He was on probation for a 2004 criminal property damage case when he stole the car.

On March 29, Raymond Corpuz parked his car with the engine running and his 4-month-old infant inside near the Golden Coin Restaurant on Liliha Street. He said he was not gone for more than five minutes when he realized someone was driving away in his car. The car, with the baby unharmed inside, was located 20 minutes after Corpuz called 911.

Prosecutors charged Tema with misdemeanor endangerment of a minor rather than kidnapping, a felony, because there was not enough evidence to support the kidnapping charge, said Deputy Prosecutor Darrell Wong. "It all comes down to whether he knew the kid was in the car."

To charge Tema with kidnapping -- intentionally or knowingly restraining a person with the intention of doing something to them -- he would have had to know the child was in the back seat, Wong said, and there was no evidence that he did until after he had taken the car.

Once Tema was aware that the child was in the car, he had a legal duty not to endanger the child's welfare, supporting the lesser charge. "He endangered the child by closing the door and leaving the windows rolled up," Wong said.

Tema was also charged with unlawful entry because he made off with some designer handbags that he found inside the car. He later told police he had traded the handbags for drugs.

Tema was arrested April 19 after a fingerprint lifted from the stolen car matched his. An anonymous tipster had also called CrimeStoppers identifying him as a possible suspect.

Tema will be sentenced Dec. 1. A judge is expected to revoke his probation next week in the March 2004 criminal property damage case.

It is one of at least three cases in the last six months of cars being stolen with an unattended child inside. All the children were recovered unharmed. Police activated the MAILE-AMBER alert in the last two cases.