The Leeward O'ahu man who helped raise one of the teens allegedly involved in Saturday's Good Samaritan murder in Waikiki said the defendant had a troubled, angry childhood and might have been abused.

"He had a lot of hate," Tony Pada, 43, said yesterday. Pada is the defendant's natural uncle who adopted the boy when he was about 7. "We had so much problems with him."

Benjamin Pada, 18, is the older half-brother of Reubyne Buentipo Jr., Pada said. Reubyne was 4 in 1997 when a beating by his mother left him brain-damaged, blind and in a vegetative state.

Kimberly Pada, the mother of both Reubyne and Benjamin, is serving a 20-year sentence for attempted manslaughter for abusing Reubyne. The boy lives at a Honolulu long-term-care home. His mother is imprisoned at Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright, Ky.

Pada's bail was set at $100,000 on charges of assault and robbery. His co-defendant, Kelii Acasia Jr., 19, is being held on $1 million bail for the alleged second-degree murder of Ned Nakoa, 58.

Nakoa died after he was severely beaten for trying to break up an alleged purse-snatching by Pada and Acasia.

Benjamin Pada and a younger sister were both from the marriage of Tony Pada's younger brother, Benjamin Pada Sr., and Kimberly Pada. The two had divorced by the time Reubyne's case came to light.

Tony Pada said he and his wife adopted Benjamin Pada and his younger sister to keep the two siblings together.

"Me and my wife adopted them to help these kids to have one home," Tony Pada said. "We opened up our house to them because the state was going to separate them and put them in foster homes. But they're family, regardless of what Kimberly did."

UPSET ABOUT REMARKS

Pada said he does not know what went on during the seven years that Benjamin lived with his natural mother, but he said the boy was angry and troubled for reasons he never understood.

"We just tried to help him," he said. "We went through so much stuff — going to court and therapy and program after program — trying to raise this boy. But I never, like, abandoned him because already he got abandoned."

Still, Pada, who has publicly expressed his sorrow to Nakoa's family for what happened, said Benjamin Pada must be accountable for his involvement in the Waikiki incident. And he's upset about remarks defending Benjamin's actions that were attributed to him, and which he said he never made.

"My only thing was I went to the courthouse to find out what happened, because I didn't know, and to apologize to (Nakoa's family) because my nephew was involved," Pada said.

DISAPPOINTED, 'BIG TIME'

Pada said that when Benjamin turned 18 he went to live with his natural father, although the two would still talk by phone once or twice a week. The last time they spoke was Friday night. They haven't talked since.

"I don't think I'll hear from him because he knows that he let us down," Tony Pada said. "I'm disappointed in him, big time. But that part will come later. My concern right now is for the family of this man who died for nothing."