A 44-year-old homeless man went on trial yesterday, charged with stealing copper from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply building on Kapahulu Avenue in May last year, a felony.

But the man's attorney told the jury his client was not the thief.

Deputy Public Defender Lee Hayakawa said witnesses, police and the prosecution got the "wrong guy."

His client, Michael Handy, is charged with two petty misdemeanors: fourth-degree theft — stealing less than $100 worth of copper — and trespassing by going onto the fenced property.

Handy is also charged with second-degree criminal property damage for causing more than $1,500 worth of damage to the facility, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

He is believed to be among the first people on O'ahu to be tried on a felony charge related to copper theft.

The theft of copper siding and rain gutters from the roof of the Board of Water facility was among a rash of copper heists last year as recyclers were paying $2.30 to $3 a pound for the metal.

In his opening, city Deputy Prosecutor Franklin Pacarro Jr. told the jury that a witness saw a man dressed in black atop the facility about 4 a.m. May 26 last year, ripping out what appeared to be rain gutters.

Handy was arrested at the scene after the teenage witness called police and he and his mother directed the officers to Handy, Pacarro said. The two later identified him as the man ripping out the gutters, the deputy prosecutor said.

In his opening, Hayakawa said his client is guilty of trespassing onto the property, but not of theft or criminal property damage.

Hayakawa said his client once was a respectable business owner who went bankrupt in 2005 and later found it difficult to find a job or a place to stay because his passport, driver's license and birth certificate had been stolen.

Handy was at the Board of Water Supply facility, known as a place where homeless people congregate, because he wanted find a safe and peaceful place, Hayakawa said.

In response to what law enforcement officials saw as an increasing problem of copper thefts, the Legislature this year passed a law that makes stealing a pound or more of copper a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

The new law does not apply to Handy because his alleged offense occurred before the law was enacted.

Handy was charged under the theft law that requires prosecutors to prove the value of the copper stolen to be more than $300 before it could be a felony punishable by up to five years, or more than $100 before it is a misdemeanor punishable by a jail term of up to a year.

Because the value of the copper stolen from the Board of Water Supply building was less than $100, Handy is charged with the petty misdemeanor theft offense.

Handy's case is one of the rare instances in which police believe they caught a person who stole the copper from a specific location, allowing prosecutors to press the felony charge of criminal property damage because they can establish the amount of damage.

The jury in Circuit Judge Steven Alm's courtroom could get the case as early as tomorrow.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.