Repeated offender jailed for receiving stolen koloa [1]
Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - 18:24
Tevita Valikoula (57) was sentenced today to five-years three-months imprisonment for receiving stolen Tongan properties valued at $19,400 pa’anga and encouraging another to steal $17,000 worth of kava plants.
Hon. Mr Justice Niu sentenced the accused, after finding him guilty on both offences in two separate trials, at the Nuku’alofa Supreme Court.
The accused had received the stolen properties, namely tapa, fine mats, among others Tongan valuables, from prolific thief Sione Mafi Lolohea (34) of Popua, in May 2019 at Matangiake.
Lolohea was jailed earlier this year for serious housebreaking and theft, when he stole these goods from the house of Senior Prison Warden Pesalili Kailahi in Ha'ateiho.
The judge said, the accused in this case knew that Lolohea had stolen these properties because he had dropped him off at Ha'ateiho to steal them. He picked Lolohea up again with the stolen properties in the boot of his car, he said.
In addition, the Crown called its witnesses, one of whom was Sione Tonata Tupou, who said that he was with the accused in his taxi cab when he dropped off Lolohea at Ha'ateiho late on that evening.
The accused and this witness went and waited for his telephone call at the Vaiola Hospital taxi stand.
Upon receiving the call the accused then went and dropped the witness at Veitongo to look for his telephone there and then he went to pick up Lolohea.
The witness said he walked back to the accused's tax allotment at Matangiake, where he and Lolohea, his son and his partner were living. The accused arrived in his car with the stolen things in the boot wrapped in a bed sheet.
Meanwhile, the second offence was on May 21, 2019 at a tax allotment in Manuka when the accused indirectly encouraged Lolohea to steal 85 kava plants belonging to 'Aloha Likio.
The same witness said, the accused and Lolohea came to Navutoka at night and picked him up from his home in a rental vehicle.
The accused then went and parked at the waterfront past Manuka and sent Lolohea to go into 'Aloha Likio's tax allotment across the road from where he parked to locate the kava plantation.
When Lolohea came back and said that he had found it, the accused then told him and the witness to come and steal the kava the following day. The witness said that he changed his mind the following day and refused to answer the accused several calls to him that day.
However, when he heard that Aloha's kava had been stolen, he contacted and told the police.
The police came to the tax allotment and searched the tent and found the two plastic bags of the items. They also found the stolen kava already cut up and spread on corrugated iron sheets to dry.
In addition, the accused son's partner said that Lolohea had arrived at daybreak with six bags of green kava. Lolohea then cut them up with a knife, while the accused sat and watched and talked with him.
No credibility
The judge said from 2005 to 2010, the accused committed four acts of indecent assaults and incest, for which he was sentenced to four-years imprisonment for each of the four acts of indecent assault and eight years for incest but all the sentences was served concurrently [meaning four-years], and that the last two-years was suspended.
He began serving those sentences at Hu'atolitoli Prison on April 30, 2012 and was released on September 10, 2016.
In addition, the accused deliberately lied to the probation officer that he and his family had migrated to Hawaii in 2000 and that he had only returned to Tonga in 2019 because his father had passed away and he came for his funeral.
“You knew that that was a lie because you were in Tonga from 2005 to 2010 because you committed the four acts of indecent assaults. You were never in Hawaii during that time at all because you were in Hu'atolitoli instead,” he said.
"I therefore find that I cannot rely on anything that you have said to the probation officer or to the bishop or to your counsel because I find you have no credibility at all."
Exploitation
The judge said that the accused had deliberately exploited Lolohea to his own advantage.
“You no doubt made his acquaintance at prison and offered him a place to stay when he was released from prison, at your tax allotment at Matangiake, because he had no home.You knew he made his living by housebreaking and theft. You dropped him off at Ha'ateiho to break into the Kailahi's house and steal her Tongan koloa. You also had him go and steal Aloha Likio's kava at Manuka,” he said.
"Instead of helping him to change his life by having a proper job to earn a living and be law abiding, you used him to go and steal for you instead. That is despicable."
The judge saw no reason why he should not be sentenced to the same period of imprisonment with no suspension because he had shown no prospect of rehabilitating his life.
“Both the town officers did not say anything or more correctly do not know of anything good that you have done that shows any improvement in your life since you came out of prison in 2016. Instead one town officer said that ever since you came to his village then various crimes happened,” he said.
"You have not even admitted that you have done anything wrong."
The judge then sentenced him to five-years three-months imprisonment without suspension.