A 25-year-old state prison inmate said in U.S. District Court on Thursday that he participated in an assault of a fellow inmate at Halawa Correctional Facility in February 2013 in order to gain membership in the Hawaii prison gang USO Family.
Akoni Davis pleaded guilty to one count of committing a violent crime to further the racketeering activities of the gang.
He faces up to 20 years in federal prison at sentencing in June. He was serving five-year prison terms at Halawa for burglary, theft and drug promotion.
Davis pleaded guilty without the benefit of a plea agreement.
His lawyer, Cynthia Kagiwada, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Puglisi that the government had offered Davis a plea deal but that he chose to plead guilty without one.
Davis was careful and consulted Kagiwada when responding to each of Puglisi’s questions about whether his actions satisfied all of the elements of the crime to which he was pleading guilty.
He said USO, which in Samoan means "brother" and is also the abbreviation of United Samoan Organization, is the prison family.
"It’s just a club, your honor," he said.
Davis said he knew that USO was engaged in racketeering and that his actions were part of the criminal enterprise activity. He said he knew that USO was trafficking drugs into Halawa but didn’t know whether members bribed prison guards to get the drugs into the facility.
He said he participated in the Feb. 17, 2013, assault "for entry into the family."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Nammar said the other inmate suffered a deep bruise on his scalp in the attack and, as a result, experiences chronic headaches.
Davis is among 17 Hawaii prison inmates and a former prison guard who were indicted in September on racketeering charges.
The government told the court in October that the USO racketeering indictment and the separate prosecutions of another prison guard (for bribery) and two drug trafficking and distribution organizations are the result of an ongoing joint agency investigation of USO.
Since then a federal grand jury indicted two more Halawa prison guards for alleged bribery and smuggling methamphetamine into the prison.
James Sanders III is also charged with possessing some of the drug when authorities arrested him at the prison Jan. 12.
Mark Damas is also charged with possessing and conspiring with Charlotte Curry to distribute methamphetamine. Damas and Curry were in U.S. District Court on Thursday, and they each pleaded not guilty.
