LIHUE — A Koloa man was arraigned Tuesday on two counts related to a fatal hit-and-run accident in Poipu earlier this year.
Michael Fostanes, 55, pleaded not guilty in Fifth Circuit Court to a felony for allegedly fleeing the scene of an accident involving death or serious bodily injury and a misdemeanor, inattention to driving. The class B felony is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
The charges against Fostanes stem from a hit-and-run accident that caused the death of Lenson Perez, a 31-year-old man from Poipu who was skateboarding on the southbound lane of Ala Kinoiki (Koloa bypass road) when he was struck by a pickup truck on March 1 around 5:30 a.m., according to a county press release.
The driver of the truck did not stop, and minutes later, Perez was struck a second time by another pickup, whose driver pulled over to help. The county press release said police arrived on scene a short time later, responding to “a report of an unresponsive man in the middle of the road” south of Kauai Christian Fellowship church.
Perez was transported to Wilcox Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Kauai Police Department officers arrested Fostanes later that day for suspicion of negligent homicide, along with the felony charge prosecutors would later arraign him on. Police said he was booked and released later that day, “pending further investigation.”
County prosecutors filed formal charges against Fostanes on Oct. 4. He was taken back into police custody the following day and posted bail. His trial is scheduled for February.
Perez’s sister spoke to a reporter with The Garden Island following Fostanes’ arraignment Tuesday morning.
“It’s overwhelming,” Leona Perez said, sitting outside the courthouse next to her 91-year-old grandfather, who helped raise her and Lenson after their parents split up when they were little kids. They came to watch the court hearing and are seeking justice for the death of their loved one, but Leona Perez explained she can’t imagine feeling any better regardless of the outcome of the case.
“I think no matter what happens, there’s no actual peace that will come to the family,” she said. “To say that the family is devastated is an understatement.”
“I don’t think it gets any easier,” Perez said, explaining how she and her family have struggled to come to grips with the loss. “You just learn to live with the pain.”
“You grow up thinking, ‘My family is invincible.’ That was quickly taken away that morning,” she said. “It took that for us to realize life is so precious. And no matter how careful you are, there are other people out there who are not.”
Perez said people still come up to her all the time to talk about Lenson and offer their condolences. She remembered a time just last week when a man walked up to her and introduced himself saying, “I knew him. My boys loved him.”
When asked who Lenson’s best friend was, Perez thought for a moment and shrugged.
“He had a lot,” she said.
Patsy Balmores was one of them.
“We used to run all the way up the cliffs, past the heiau,” she said, remembering how she would run along behind Lenson from Shipwrecks Beach, following the trail from the top of the cliff back toward CJM Stables and Mahaulepu. She got out of breath. Lenson smoked a cigarette.
“He would run all the way there and be like, ‘you want a drag?’” she said.
Within hours of his death, dozens of Lenson’s friends had gathered at Shipwrecks Beach with flowers and lei and anything else they thought he might like. On the trunk of a palm tree they pinned packs of candy, a skateboard deck, a hat, a T-shirt, a flag. They nailed a piece of plywood to the tree and covered it with messages to Lenson and things they remember him saying.
When it first happened, Patsy said she went down to Shipwrecks to visit Lenson’s memorial and bring him some Reese’s and “a cup of sugar with coffee in it.” She remembers him on early mornings at Brennecke’s pouring 20 packets of sugar into a tiny cup of coffee.
“I’d go, ‘Lenson, that’s too much sugar!’” she said. “And he’d be like, ‘OK. Can I save your life today?’” That was his way of asking for a cigarette — ‘Can I save your life?’”
For months after his death, Lenson’s memorial at Shipwrecks grew. The Hyatt sent over huge bouquets of flowers. Fresh lei would appear every few weeks. One of his closest friends made a picnic table inscribed with his name and put it under the palm tree right where the previous table had been before Lenson destroyed it. They say he tore it apart with his bare hands.
Every weekend almost all summer long, dozens of Lenson’s friends gathered around that table. Sometimes they shared stories about him — legendary stories.
They talk about him doing suicides off the cliff, falling 40 feet to the sea with his arms at his sides, or getting so much air sandsliding people would gather around just to watch, or chasing every single tourist off the beach because they littered too much.
“He would lose it,” Patsy said. “He’d be like, ‘Pick up your trash!’”
There are also stories about how he would bring young ladies in the coffee shop flowers every morning and keep an eye on all the local kids at the beach and make little girls laugh and smile.
“He was like a … an angel in disguise,” she said. “Like a guardian. That’s why they call him the guardian of Keoneloa Bay.”
A county press release on the day of the accident said Lenson “had no known address at the time of his death,” but the word “homeless” would not be an accurate description. His friends say he would always turn down offers to sleep at their homes.
“Shipwrecks was his home,” Patsy said during a phone interview.
She got quiet for a little while, then said, “I just want everyone to know what a good heart he had. Lotta people just knew him as that guy that wore a puka shell necklace and rode around on a skateboard, but he was more than that. He was a guardian angel.”
Then, laughing to herself, she added, “He was a guardian angel wearing a puka shell necklace on a skateboard.”
Patsy stopped talking again, sighed, then said, “He gave us so much and he had hardly anything.”
That was the end of the conversation, and she hung up the phone. She called back less than a minute later.
“I forgot to tell you something,” she said, and started a story that happened years ago when she and Lenson and a couple other friends shared a tiny place together, “all piled on top of each other.” Sometimes they argued like crowded roommates do.
Patsy remembered one night when she and Lenson yelled and screamed at each other and went to bed mad. The next morning, she got up and left the house for work. Neither of them had phones or any way to get in touch, but like always, Lenson found a way to make it right. Patsy said it drove him crazy otherwise.
She came home later that day and found an apology letter waiting for her. It was written in Magic Marker on a paper plate.
“He would do anything to let me know that he was sorry,” she said.
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
