LIHU’E – When Ronald “Inat” Finney’s young son said “Bye, bye daddy,” in the hallway of the courthouse here recently, the toddler had no idea the bullet his father had just dodged. Prosecutor Russell Goo wanted Finney behind bars for
LIHU’E – When Ronald “Inat” Finney’s young son said “Bye, bye daddy,” in the hallway of the courthouse here recently, the toddler had no idea the bullet his father had just dodged.
Prosecutor Russell Goo wanted Finney behind bars for most of what would be the younger boy’s formative years, but Fifth Circuit Court Judge Clifford Nakea, noting that Finney had impressed his probation officer and agreed to enter the Habilitat drug-rehabilitation program, sentenced him to probation for some of the five criminal counts he was charged with.
Goo asked Nakea to sentence Finney to 10 years in prison, and that he further be sentenced to pay restitution of several thousand dollars to a burglary victim.
Finney was charged with two counts of criminal property damage, burglary, theft and escape, and if he doesn’t successfully complete the Habilitat regimen there’ll be no escaping prison time, Nakea warned.
Even though Nakea said Finney’s lengthy rap sheet indicates he has “a disregard of law,” he imposed the sentence of probation with a one-year jail term with credit for time already served.
The judge will allow Finney to enter the Habilitat program if he is accepted into the program, after he has served 90 days of the jail term, he said.
Failure to successfully complete the Habilitat program will be a violation of terms of Finney’s probation, Nakea said, making Finney subject to up to 20 years in prison on the burglary charge and up to 10 years on each of the class-C felonies that brought him to court earlier this month.
Nakea ordered Finney to pay $11,500 restitution to a burglary victim, but that amount might change pending further court consideration.
In Finney’s defense, public defender James Itamura said his client now understands there’s more to life than “hanging out and getting high,” and that Finney even disagreed with Hina Mauka drug-program counselors who told him he didn’t have a drug problem.
Itamura said Finney fled to Virginia after escaping from police custody, and turned himself in on the Mainland, though earlier information from police and prosecutors indicated he was captured at his mother’s home on the Mainland after police received a Crime Stoppers tip.
Finney, 24, apologized to the court, said he’ll learn from his experiences, and added that he should have learned earlier. He begged the court for admission into the Habilitat program instead of prison time, arguing that if he was sent to prison he would be surrounded by people worse than himself, and that being around them would make him worse as well.
Nakea warned Finney again that the Habilitat program is not easy, and that failure there means prison time. Finney pledged he would not fail the program.
Goo objected to the plea for Habilitat training and probation, saying Finney has been arrested numerous times, and that his offenses were “escalating” in severity.
Finney continues to “slip and slide through the system,” and his escape and flight not just to another part of the island, or another part of the state, but to a state several thousand miles away, further shows his disregard for the law, said Goo.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
