A 21-year-old suspect awaiting trial for numerous recent auto thefts is back behind bars after being freed from Hawaii Community Correctional Center after a paperwork mix-up, police and prosecutors said Friday.
A 21-year-old suspect awaiting trial for numerous recent auto thefts is back behind bars after being freed from Hawaii Community Correctional Center after a paperwork mix-up, police and prosecutors said Friday.
Keanu K. Krause was apprehended without incident in Puna late Friday afternoon, according to multiple sources.
“There was a paperwork snafu,” Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville said. “After his most recent court hearing, the sheriffs took him back to HCCC without the court’s bail order. … Without the paperwork, the jail didn’t have the authority to hold him.”
Krause was released by HCCC on Friday morning, according to Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz.
“The Third Circuit Court did not issue orders pertaining to bail or any related paperwork authorizing the continued detention of Keanu Krause at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center … ,” Schwartz said in an email early Friday evening. “The (Hilo) District Court dismissed his cases and ordered his release. HCCC followed through with the order and released him … at approximately 11 a.m.”
Schwartz also took issue with a breaking news story by the Tribune-Herald that reported Krause was “mistakenly released,” saying the “assumption” that the department (HCCC) “was at fault does damage that can’t be taken back.”
“In this case we followed orders by the courts. We didn’t make the mistake,” she wrote.
Krause has a Nov. 6 trial date in Hilo Circuit Court for unauthorized entry to a motor vehicle, third-degree theft, three counts of second-degree theft and four counts of unauthorized control of a stolen vehicle. He also has a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 6 for another count of unauthorized control of a stolen vehicle plus burglary and fourth-degree theft.
His bail is set at $94,000.
“We’re glad he’s back in custody,” Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth said.
The prosecutor called Krause’s release “frustrating.”
“The police officers and deputy prosecutors have been working really hard on this and it’s really disappointing,” Roth said prior to Krause’s recapture.
This is the third time since 2013 that a high-profile defendant was released from custody because of similar paperwork snafus between the courthouse and HCCC.
Tyler Kamana‘o Taylor, who is serving a 10-year prison term for robbing two tourist campers at knifepoint at Kolekole Beach Park, was similarly released March 6, 2013. Police put out a bulletin seeking public information about his whereabouts June 12, 2013, two days after the Tribune-Herald published a story about his erroneous release from jail. He turned himself in in late August 2013.
And William Roy Carroll III, who is serving a five-year sentence for vandalizing and stealing the spear of the Kamehameha statue in Hilo, was released Sept. 15, 2015, after the jail received dismissal papers from Hilo District Court before obtaining a Hilo Circuit Court complaint for the same charges. Carroll was taken into custody the following morning without incident.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.