Internships offered at isle media outlets
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Hawaii chapter is looking for college students and 2013 graduates interested in paid summer internships.
Interns work full time for 10 weeks at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Pacific Business News, Hawaii Magazine, Hawaii Business, Honolulu Magazine, Pacific Edge, Trade Publishing, Honolulu Civil Beat, HuffPost Hawaii, The Hawaii Independent, Hawaii News Now or Alexander & Baldwin. Hawaii Public Radio, KHON and KITV offer part-time work for eight weeks.
Residents who attended a Hawaii high school and are at least college sophomores are eligible to apply. Students can fill out an application form at hawaiispj.org and email a cover letter along with writing samples to spjinterns@gmail.com. The deadline is March 17. For more information, contact Craig DeSilva at 282-1038 or cdesilva@hotmail.com.
Banker pleads guilty to theft from various hui
HILO » A former Bank of Hawaii banker has pleaded guilty to embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from various Hawaii island organizations, including a Little League team.
Cheryl Octavio’s plea agreement says she stole at least $22,000 from Hilo Little League accounts and thousands more from two soccer clubs, a pageant organization and a car repair shop, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported Monday. She was president of the Little League.
Naomi Campbell, Little League district administrator for Hawaii and Maui counties, said she suspected something was wrong with Hilo Little League’s books in 2011, which prompted her to ask a league official to conduct an internal audit. "Cheryl’s a really good lady, but she got caught up in all her activities, trying to be a good mother, that she just fell from one thing to another, from the way I see it," Campbell said. "But, of course, that matters not. It’s a lot of money that the kids were deprived of. It’s a very sad situation."
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reimbursed the league $30,000, which allowed the league to start the 2014 season, Campbell said.
Defense attorney Marcus Sierra said his client is "not your typical criminal or mastermind." He suggested she could have fallen into debt that she couldn’t climb out of.
Octavio, 43, pleaded guilty Nov. 21 and is scheduled to be sentenced April 28 in federal court in Honolulu. The terms of her plea agreement include a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Sierra said that because she took responsibility, he’ll be able to argue for a shorter incarceration.
