A federal judge sentenced Lloyd Robert Marshall on Monday to three years in prison and his wife, Nitta Mitsuko Marshall, to 18 months for conducting cockfights and other gambling on their Lualualei property and for banking the proceeds in cash increments of less than $10,000 to evade reporting requirements.
U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway also ordered the forfeiture to the government of the Marshalls’ home at 86-715 Puuhulu Road, where the cockfights, card and dice games were held, and the $170,578 in cash authorities seized from the home and from a car on the property in a July 2, 2011, raid.
Mollway gave the Marshalls until March to surrender to begin serving their terms.
Lloyd Marshall, 68, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, asked the court for probation because of his age and health. His lawyer, Brandon Flores, said Marshall has heart problems and is receiving government checks for his 100 percent disability because of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I will never, ever get involved in something like that again," Lloyd Marshall told the judge.
Nitta Marshall, 66, apologized and also sought probation. "I feel ashamed of the crimes both me and my husband did."
Her lawyer, Cliff Hunt, criticized the prosecutor’s description of the Marshalls’ activity as large, well organized and sophisticated. "It was as well organized as a church potluck," Hunt said. "This was a social activity that they were involved in."
He said the Marshalls welcomed families and prohibited drugs.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Beverly Wee Sameshima said the Marshalls knew what they were doing was illegal. She said police had conducted raids at the Marshalls’ home since at least 2005.
Sameshima said the Marshalls bragged to bank tellers that the money they were depositing was from cockfighting and that Robert Marshall said on television following a raid that cockfighting is a cultural activity and a way of life.
Mollway said probation was not an option because of the more than $200,000 they had deposited in structured transactions. She also cited the length of time they ran the cockfights and the fact that Robert Marshall continued the activity even after his 1993 and 2005 convictions in state court for possession of gambling records and cruelty to animals.
