Two Native Hawaiian men were sentenced Thursday to more than four years in prison for the 2014 beating of a man who was moving into their remote neighborhood in Maui.
Last November, a jury found that Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi, 32, and Levi Aki Jr., 33, were motivated by a man’s race when they punched, kicked and used a shovel to beat him.
The attack left Christopher Kunzelman, who’s white, with two broken ribs, a concussion and head trauma.
Alo-Kaonohi and Aki, who told local authorities that the man was trespassing, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and were sentenced to probation.
However, in an unusual move, federal authorities secured a grand jury indictment in 2020 and charged each man with a hate crime count. The case came to reflect the complicated racial tensions between Native Hawaiians and people who move to Hawaii but remain insensitive to the islands’ culture and history.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright sentenced Aki to four years and two months in prison, and Alo-Kaonohi to six and a half years.
Attorneys for the two men said they weren’t motivated by Kunzelman’s race, but instead by his sense of entitlement and disrespectful attitude.
Kunzelman, who was fixing up a house he had purchased in the small village, cut a lock to access a private road. He later testified he did so because he was being locked out by those in the village. He also said he wanted to buy better locks for village gates and distribute keys among residents.
The case is believed to be the first time Native Hawaiians have been prosecuted for hate crimes.
Seabright on Thursday acknowledged the case is different from other hate crimes, such as when a person goes into a Black church or gay nightclub to intentionally harm people because they are Black or LGBTQ.
He also noted that he understands that Alo-Kaonohi might not be a racist person, but he was “a racist on that day.”