Eamonn Carolan, 18, and Orien Macomber, 19, were sentenced Thursday for their attack on a group of gay campers at Polihale Beach State Park last year. Fifth Circuit Court Judge Clifford Nakea sentenced the teens to five years apiece in
Eamonn Carolan, 18, and Orien Macomber, 19, were sentenced Thursday for their attack on a group of gay campers at Polihale Beach State Park last year.
Fifth Circuit Court Judge Clifford Nakea sentenced the teens to five years apiece in prison for their guilty pleas to felony assault charges in connection with the incident at a campsite on the evening of May 26.
Each teen also pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts of terroristic threatening in the first degree, multiple counts of unauthorized entry in a motor vehicle, and criminal property damage.
On all but the felony assault charges, Nakea sentenced Carolan and Macomber to four years per count, but ruled those additional sentences to be served concurrent with the five-year sentences and not consecutively.
That means that the state parole board could release Carolan and Macomber before the initial five years have been served.
If Nakea had maxed out the sentences, Carolan and Macomber could have spent 40 years behind bars.
The teens have been incarcerated at Kaua’i Community Correctional Center since their arrests immediately after the attacks.
Both defendants were accused of trying to set two occupied tents on fire, and Macomber allegedly swung a bamboo stick at a male camper.
No one was seriously injured in the attack, which also allegedly included verbal harassment based on the victims’ sexual preferences.
Carolan’s mother, Nancy Carolan, said after the verdict that she was “very, very relieved he only got five years.”
She said her son has been “a model prisoner” and has become “the editor of the prison newspaper.”
Many of the victims were also in court. One said afterward that the sentence was fair.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
