February 11, 2015

Former Corrections Officer Receives 97-Month Prison Sentence

HONOLULU—Former corrections officer Feso Malufau, age 55, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi to 97 months’ imprisonment on charges that he conspired with the USO Family prison gang to obtain and smuggle methamphetamine and other contraband into Halawa Correctional Facility. A federal jury found Malufau guilty of racketeering on October 10, 2014, following a nine-day jury trial.

Florence T. Nakakuni, United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii, said that according to information presented during the trial, other conspirators paid Malufau thousands of dollars to smuggle drugs, including methamphetamine, and cigarettes into prison and deliver them to USO gang members. In rendering the sentence, Judge Kobayashi addressed the dangers of injecting methamphetamine into the “powder keg” of a prison facility. As reasons for the length of the sentence, she pointed to Malufau’s abuse of the public trust (as a sergeant), his endangerment of the lives of his co-workers and vulnerable prison inmates, and his contributions to emboldening the powerful USO Family gang. Judge Kobayashi described the evidence against him at trial as “overwhelming,” and expressed a desire for the sentence to send a message to others considering engaging in similar behavior that it is not worth the risk.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the State of Hawaii Department of Public Safety, and the Honolulu Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Thomas J. Brady and Jill Otake prosecuted this case.