2 Hawaiian men guilty of hate crime in white man’s beating
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) — A jury has found two Native Hawaiian men guilty of a hate crime for the 2014 beating of a white man. Christopher Kunzelman says he was beaten while trying to fix up a home he purchased in a remote Maui village. He says his attackers, Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr., told him no white people would ever live there. Defense attorneys did not deny the attack but said it wasn’t a hate crime. They say the men were not motivated by race but by Kunzelman’s disrespectful and entitled attitude. Both men pleaded guilty to charges in state court, and the federal trial was only to determine if they were guilty of a hate crime.
