A 32-year-old Kona man was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in a violent home invasion last year in Puna and for molesting two minors in Kona. ADVERTISING A 32-year-old Kona man was sentenced Thursday to
A 32-year-old Kona man was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in a violent home invasion last year in Puna and for molesting two minors in Kona.
Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara told Dustin James Jose during sentencing the prison term is “more than appropriate and deserved.”
Jose pleaded guilty in May to second-degree robbery and second-degree assault. He also was allowed to consolidate sentencing for two counts of third-degree sex assault for the molestation of two minors in Kona. All the sentences will run concurrently. In a deal with prosecutors, a first-degree burglary charge was dropped.
He also was originally charged with first-degree sex assault and continuous sex assault of a minor younger than 14, Class A felonies that carry possible 20-year prison terms.
Jose, 32-year-old Jack Vaughn of Kona, and a third, unidentified man, all wearing masks, reportedly pulled onto the Hawaiian Paradise Park property of Claudine Prados in a pickup truck July 12, 2013, and attacked Prados, her 9-year-old son and the boy’s father, Clayton Mahi.
Mahi suffered a broken eye socket during the attack, which Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Hashizaki said in May was part of a planned robbery committed at “the wrong residence.”
The men made off with Prados’ purse, checkbook and a backpack with her son’s clothes.
Prados fought back, trying to protect her son, and hit Vaughn over the head several times with a meat cleaver. She followed the men outside and hurled a can of pork-and-beans at the truck as it left.
The can landed in the truck bed and police found it when they pulled the vehicle over later that night in Kurtistown and arrested Vaughn and Jose. Jose was driving the truck.
Vaughn, a former combat Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, pleaded guilty in May to first-degree burglary, second-degree robbery and two counts of third-degree assault. He entered his plea without a deal.
Neither Vaughn nor Jose named the third masked suspect. Vaughn’s attorney, Bill Heflin, said Vaughn refused out of fear of the individual, whom Heflin described as “the mastermind.”
Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville said Vaughn and Jose “were probably up to their ears in debt to a violent drug dealer who decided that they were going to go out and collect the debt.”
“Mr. Jose, you could do a lot of time in prison because you don’t want to put the guy who should be there in with you,” Damerville continued. “So when you go up there and when you find that the minimum (sentence set) by the parole board is not exactly what you wanted, and you decide to change your mind about givin’ up the guy who put you on this road, it may be too late because the statute of limitations will have (expired), and the state can’t put him in there. So you should think rather quickly about whether you’re going to name the person who put you on this road, because he certainly didn’t do you any favors.”
When asked by the judge if he had anything to say, Jose replied, “No, sorry to take up your time.”
Hara told Jose he would honor the deal for concurrent sentencing although his crimes “could easily have supported a consecutive sentence.”
“You invaded somebody’s home; you invaded somebody’s space. Multiple people got assaulted,” the judge noted. “And the second offense, two charges (of) sex assault in the third degree. … You’re invading … an area that people want to feel secure about. You did that twice now.”
Jose will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-
herald.com.
