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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Driver accused of killing motorcyclist in Waipahu balks at entering guilty plea


By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

A three-time drunk driver accused of killing a motorcyclist in a vehicular collision last year balked at entering a guilty plea when he appeared in court this morning.

"I’m very confused,” Siaosi Feleunga, 32, told Circuit Judge Karen Ahn.
Feleunga said he was unhappy with his lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Jerry Villanueva, and asked Ahn to provide him with another court-appointed attorney.
Villanueva then asked to withdraw from the case after telling Ahn that Feleunga never told him that he was “dissatisfied with my services.”
Ahn granted the request but said Feleunga’s new lawyer should be prepared for trial Jan. 11.
She warned Feleunga that he can’t keep switching defense attorneys.
“You don’t have a right to a specific lawyer,” she told the defendant.
“This is not an endless road,” Ahn said.
Feleunga was set to plead guilty to charges including negligent homicide and driving while his license was suspended for a previous DUI conviction.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Franklin Pacarro Jr. said he is prepared to go to trial and that Feleunga faces as much as 16 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges against him.
Feleunga, who is also known as “One Eye George,” allegedly crashed his truck into a motorcycle driven by Lindsey Kane on Farrington Highway in Waipahu Dec. 29.
At the time of the collision, at least two bench warrants for Feleunga’s arrest had been outstanding since October 2006, according to court records.
The warrants were issued after Feleunga failed to appear in court to prove that he had complied with court sentences handed down in three earlier drunken−driving convictions.
The warrants were not served until January of this year, after Feleunga was arrested following Kane's death.
Outstanding arrest warrants are a chronic problem for law enforcement here.
The Advertiser reported earlier that more than 50,000 traffic and misdemeanor arrest warrants are in the files of sheriffs and police departments around the state but can't be served because of manpower shortages and priorities given to more serious warrants.
Prosecutors allege that Kane was fatally injured after Feleunga, driving his truck in the left lane, tried to make an illegal right turn and smashed into Kane's Harley−Davidson motorcycle.
Feleunga fled the scene. Kane died after being hospitalized.