LIHU‘E — The late Lauren Keala Megumi Kagawa said she feared for her safety, and was choked and sexually assaulted by a former boyfriend in March of this year, in court documents obtained Thursday. Kagawa’s hand-written temporary restraining order request,
LIHU‘E — The late Lauren Keala Megumi Kagawa said she feared for her safety, and was choked and sexually assaulted by a former boyfriend in March of this year, in court documents obtained Thursday.
Kagawa’s hand-written temporary restraining order request, filed July 21 against former Kaua‘i Police Department officer Joseph Genaro Bonachita, 41, of Hanapepe, indicates Bonachita sexually assaulted and choked the 27-year-old Puhi woman on March 29.
“I thought I was going to die,” she wrote on the TRO form, received by the 5th Circuit Family Court July 23.
Fifth Circuit Family Court Judge Calvin Murashige granted the TRO in July, and minutes from a court hearing on Aug. 6 indicate Kagawa told the court Bonachita was continuing to harass her via e-mail.
Murashige advised her to report the incident to police, court records show.
Arrest records do not show Bonachita was arrested for the alleged March incidents.
KPD has yet to identify Bonachita or anybody else as either a person of interest or a suspect in the death of Kagawa, who was found dead Monday in the driveway of her Ho‘okena subdivision home.
KPD Chief Darryl Perry declined further comment when reached Thursday evening on his cell phone.
In the TRO document, Kagawa wrote that Bonachita broke into a home belonging to a friend of Kagawa’s looking for her, and had a knife on him. Bonachita was arrested on July 1 for first-degree burglary, according to KPD’s arrest log, but it is unclear if that is the incident Kagawa referred to in her TRO paperwork.
Bonachita answered his cell phone when called Thursday, then hung up when he learned the caller was from The Garden Island. A repeat call went to his voice mail, and that message requesting comment was not returned. A man answering the phone at a number identified in court records as Bonachita’s work contact, the Hawai‘i Air National Guard station at Koke‘e, said Bonachita was not there.
Perry said the Kagawa death case is still currently considered an unattended death, though the daily incident log for Monday, Aug. 17 says police opened a second-degree murder investigation in the case.
According to court documents, TROs “are issued when the court determines there has been a pattern of harassment,” including physical or sexual harassment, violence, threats of violence or property damage.
This specific TRO prohibited Bonachita from coming within 100 yards of Kagawa, or from contacting her via telephone, in writing, or any electronic means.
Kagawa said in the TRO she had a one-year dating relationship with Bonachita, and that she believed she was in immediate danger of further abuse.
She said in the court document Bonachita might be mentally ill, and may own a firearm. The case was supposed to have been continued to Thursday, but by Kagawa’s request was rescheduled to Thursday, Aug. 27, court documents indicate.
Court records also show Bonachita owns a rifle, and at one time owned a semi-automatic pistol.
For the purposes of the TRO, Bonachita was served with notice at KPD headquarters, court records show.
In 1999, while Bonachita was still a KPD employee, he was accused of sexually assaulting his former sister-in-law, charged with eight counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted sexual assault, but pleaded no contest to and was found guilty of two misdemeanor charges of second-degree violation of privacy and open lewdness in a plea agreement.
That plea agreement resulted in the dismissal of charges of kidnapping, family abuse and second-degree terroristic threatening, in another case against Bonachita.
As terms of the plea deal, Bonachita agreed to submit to sex-offender treatment. Court documents indicate he had a dating relationship with the victim before the alleged sexual assault took place.
“Defendant (Bonachita) is not likely to engage in a criminal course of conduct,” wrote Bonachita’s attorneys, June C. Ikemoto and Erick T.S. Moon, in an order granting a deferred acceptance of no-contest plea signed in October 2001 by 5th Circuit Judge Clifford Nakea.
There was also a child-support case brought against Bonachita by a state agency and his ex-wife, Janey N. Bonachita, in 2002-2003, alleging Joseph Bonachita’s non-payment of child support in the neighborhood of $10,000, court records show.
Bonachita was a KPD officer from 1989 to 2000, when he resigned, court records show. Perry said in an e-mail Bonachita was with KPD from 1991 to 2000, received 14 letters of appreciation or commendations, and had no disciplinary action taken against him during his tenure, which ended when he resigned voluntarily.
In April, within days of when Kagawa alleges the sexual assault and choking took place, she was arrested on separate dates for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant and family abuse, which includes abuse against “spouses or reciprocal beneficiaries, former spouses or reciprocal beneficiaries, persons who have a child in common, parents, children, persons related by consanguinity, and persons jointly residing or formerly residing in the same dwelling unit,” according to Section 709-906 of the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes.
• Paul C. Curtis, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
