Barnes, 50, alleged quarantine-breaker, held at OCCC now

LIHU’E — A Utah man was unable to appear at his Tuesday afternoon plea hearing after being transferred to the O’ahu Community Correctional Center.

David Barnes, 50, of Bountiful, Utah, who is facing misdemeanor charges, was transferred to OCCC for reasons unknown to Fifth Circuit Court Judge Randal G. B. Valenciano or his attorney Samuel Jajich.

Barnes was charged with three separate violations of quarantine and a trespassing charge, which he documented with 83 TikTok videos. He tagged the Kaua‘i Police Department on several of those videos from the time he arrived at the Lihu’e Airport on Dec. 28 after traveling from the mainland.

Barnes was being held at the Kaua‘i Community Correction Center on $11,000 bail before being transferred to Honolulu.

According to Jajich, Barnes was going to enter a plea of not guilty and is currently scheduled to have an examination on his mental fitness.

While awaiting the results of the mental-fitness evaluation, Barnes may opt to take a plea agreement the state would offer him for his supervised release and credit for time served. Details of the stipulations of the pending agreement are not known as of press time.

Valenciano is working on arranging a Zoom teleconference video conference at OCCC instead of having Barnes fly back to Kaua‘i for his hearings.

Barnes was adamant about his dislike for Kaua‘i rules in some of his videos.

“(The rules are) really f***ing stupid, but, these are the rules, and I do not want to go back to jail,” he said while breaking the rule.

According to KPD, he did not have lodgings accommodations when he arrived, and made reservations at the Sheraton Kaua‘i Coconut Beach Resort in Waipouli. Officials allowed him to leave the airport after reservations were confirmed.

Barnes proceeded to leave the airport on foot and reportedly walked to Costco Wholesale, where he proceeded to shop. KPD arrested him that same day. According to KPD, he was released on $1,000 bail and required to complete his travel quarantine.

In one TikTok dated Dec. 31, Barnes films a KPD officer, driving him to his lodgings for the rest of his quarantine.

In the video, Barnes claims he spent two days in a KPD jail cell and one day at KCCC, where he was placed into solitary confinement before being released.

KPD arrested Barnes for a second time on Jan. 5 for three more counts of violating the governor’s and mayor’s emergency rules, and one count of simple trespass.

Barnes is scheduled for a change of plea hearing on Feb. 16.

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Jason Blasco, reporter, can be reached at 245-0437 or jblasco@thegardenisland.com. Sabrina Bodon, government reporter, can be reached at 245-0441 or sbodon@thegardenisland.com, and contributed to this report.