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Wife of former DPS captain charged with passing bad checks, stealing

Tuilua’ai Fa’amausili is scheduled to make her initial appearance in the District Court this morning on allegations of writing bad checks and stealing.

Tuilua’ai was apprehended with an arrest warrant by detectives with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Department of Public Safety last Friday. She has been in jail since Friday with bail set at $20,000.

According to the government’s case, on December 7, 2011 Nie Ming, owner of K & K Corporation filed a formal complaint with the CID against FTC Corporation, which is owned by the defendant Tuilua’ai Fa’amausili and Office of Motor Vehicle (OMV) Manager Mau Fa’amausili for writing three checks to the victim’s company on three separate occasions — the account had insufficient funds to cover the checks.

Tuilua’ai is charged with three counts of passing bad checks and three counts of stealing.

Each count of passing bad checks is a class D felony which is punishable up to five years in jail, a fine of $5,000 — a fine equal to twice the amount of gain from the commission of the said crime up to a maximum of $20,000 — or both.

Each stealing charge is a class C felony punishable for up to seven years in jail, a fine of up to $5,000 — a fine equal to twice the amount of gain from the commission of the said crime up to a maximum of $20,000 — or both.

According to the government’s case on July 12, 2011 the defendant’s husband, Mau Fa’amausili went to the victim’s company and purchased furniture worth $3,549 and Mau told the victim that his wife, the defendant would pay him later.

The government alleges the victim agreed and provided Mau with a receipt which he signed. Three days later the defendant (Mau’s wife) wrote a check to the victim in the amount of $3,549 and told the victim not to deposit the check until she called him.

The government claims that on July 23, 2011 the defendant went to the victim for the second time and purchased $5,031 worth of ceramic tile and issued the victim a check in the amount of $5,031 and again asked the victim not to deposit the check until she called him, saying that she was waiting for some money to come in.

The government alleges that four days later the victim went to Bank of Hawai’i to see if there was sufficient funds in the defendant’s account for the two checks he had  deposited; however there was not.

Court documents say that on August 1, 2011, the defendant again went to the victim’s business and made another purchase for approximately $3,900, and the defendant wrote another check to the victim.

The government alleges the next day, the defendant returned and begged the victim to give back the check she had written the day before, because she needed to pay her workers. The defendant told the victim she would pay him back once she gets money.

Five days later the defendant wrote the victim another check replacing the check she went to get back in the amount of $3,948, court documents state.

According to the nine-page affidavit, on August 10, 2011 the victim checked with Bank of Hawai’i on the status of the two checks from the defendant. The bank told the victim that not long after he deposited the two checks, the funds from the defendant’s account were withdrawn.

Court documents say the victim made multiple calls to the defendant to discuss the bad checks, however the defendant would say that she was too busy to talk and she would call later.

The government claims that late in October 2011 the victim went to Mau Fa’amausili, husband of the defendant at the OMV, (his place of work) and told him about the bad checks. It is alleged that Mau told the victim not to take his wife to court but to give them more time to pay the money they owed. Court filings state that two months later the victim reported the matter to police.

According to the government’s case, when detectives met with Mau Fa’amausili about this matter, he told the officers that the FTK Corporation account is still open, however there were not enough funds to cover the checks his wife had written to the victim. Mau told police that they shop from a lot of different companies and always pay with checks, and when the victim had tried to cash his checks, some other companies had cashed their checks first — which is why there was not enough money to cover the checks that were written to the victim.

Court documents further state that the defendant, Tuilua’ai Fa’amausili, told police when she shopped at the victim’s business she was willing to pay cash, however the victim insisted on a check.

The court affadavit notes that on February 14, 2012, a written notice was mailed to the defendant by certified mail with receipt regarding the non-payment and passing of bad checks.

In this updated story the headline originally read, “Wife of former police commissioner charged with passing bad checks, stealing”, Samoa News mistakenly identified Mau Fa’amausili, as a former police commissioner. We were corrected by an official of the Department of Public Safety and by Mr. Fa’amausili that he was a former Police captain, not commissioner.
We apologize to our readers for our inadvertent error.