Native Hawaiians jailed and found guilty of hate crime after beating white man
Luke Gentile
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At least two Native Hawaiian men were ordered jailed Thursday after they were found guilty of hate crime charges relating to the beating of a white man in a Maui village.
Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. had racial motivations when they kicked, punched, and beat Christopher Kunzelman with a shovel in 2014.
Kunzelman, a white man, had gone to the village to purchase a fixer-upper, according to a report.
He suffered two broken ribs, a concussion, and injuries to his head and abdomen, prosecutors said.
Both Alo-Kaonohi and Aki were indicted on hate crime charges in December 2020 by a federal grand jury, six years after the attack.
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The two men had received light sentences after pleading no contest in state court, but Kunzelman demanded that “justice, in this case, is not probation.”
A federal trial was thus held to determine if the men were guilty of committing a hate crime.
Attorneys for Alo-Kaonohi and Aki argued the attack on Kunzelman was not motivated by race but was instead motivated by his entitled and disrespectful attitude.
The attackers were upset that Kunzelman had removed the locks to the village gates because the villagers kept locking him out, but Kunzelman testified he intended to replace the locks with better ones.
Kunzelman said he was beaten because he was white.
Alo-Kaonohi and Aki told him that white people would never live in the Kahakuloa village and used a racial slur against white people, he said.
They called him a “haole,” which can mean foreigner and white person in a derogatory manner.
Kunzelman has since moved to Puerto Rico with his family, the report noted.
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Sentencing for the men is slated for March 2, and both men face a possible 10-year sentence.