The former head coach of the Sacred Hearts Academy softball team will serve 20 months in federal prison for her alleged role in a conspiracy to smuggle methamphetamine and a gun to her stepbrother through a guard at the Oahu Community Correctional Center.
Keicha K.W. Brunn-Kekuewa, 30, was sentenced Monday by Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson, who she had asked for probation or some combination of home confinement so she could remain with her two young children.
Watson also gave Brunn-Kekuewa two years of supervised release following her prison time. She will self-surrender to prison by
2 p.m. June 20.
Brunn-Kekuewa asked Watson to recommend to the Federal Bureau of Prisons that she serve her sentence at either the Federal Detention Center Honolulu, the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, or the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix or Tucson.
Brunn-Kekuewa stepped down as head coach after the 2022 season following a March 4, 2021, superseding indictment charging her with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to possess a firearm by a felon and unlawful user of a controlled substance.
Brunn-Kekuewa entered into a plea agreement Nov. 1 where she declared her intent to plead guilty to the methamphetamine conspiracy in exchange for the
U.S. Department of Justice dropping the gun charge.
A former catcher, she was
a member of the Lancers’ 2007 ILH and state Division II championship team.
Sacred Hearts Academy, Brunn-Kekuewa’s attorney, Lars R. Isaacson, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Hudspeth declined comment on the sentence.
According to federal court documents, on Dec. 10, 2019, and Feb. 7, 2020, Brunn-Kekuewa’s stepbrother, Robert S. Gibson, called his girlfriend, Ceceliacharity Hilo, on multiple
occasions from the Oahu Community Correctional Center, through Brunn-Kekuewa.
Gibson allegedly laid out a conspiracy and gave instructions to Hilo and Brunn-Kekuewa about how to “acquire, package and deliver methamphetamine” with the assistance of a prison guard, Richard Ascencio, who allegedly
intended to smuggle it into OCCC for Gibson.
According to the plea agreement, Brunn-Kekuewa met with Ascencio at Whitmore Village on Feb. 11, 2020, and at that meeting, at a convenience store, security camera footage showed Brunn- Kekuewa delivering the methamphetamine
obtained from Hilo to
Ascencio.
Gibson was sentenced
to 100 months in federal prison, Hilo got 27 months and Ascencio will be sentenced July 27.
