CONVICT PREMATURELY RELEASED FROM JAIL

District Court Judge John Ward was not happy when he found out that an inmate that he had ordered to serve 90 days in jail for third degree assault was released on his own recognizance by the High Court last month.

Martin Sega, the defendant in question, had a case pending in High Court, where he and his brother were accused of allegedly drugging and sexually abusing a six-year-old boy and he was charged with child molesting, deviate sexual assault, sexual abuse first degree, endangering the welfare of a child and furnishing pornographic materials to a minor.

In a plea agreement with the government, Sega pled guilty to sexual assault after which he was sentenced behind closed doors and released from jail.

Last week Friday, Ward called a hearing on this matter, to get to the bottom of why the defendant was released from jail after Sega had been charged with assaulting another inmate while in jail and later convicted of third degree assault.  Following that conviction, Ward ordered him to serve 90 days in jail beginning April 4, 2014.

When Ward asked why Sega had been released from jail, the prosecutor told the court that according to information from the Tafuna Correctional Facility, there was no document presented to the TCF indicating that Sega had been sentenced for 90 days in the assault case.

Ward told the attorneys last Friday that whenever there is a sentence handed down in District Court, a copy should always be given to the High Court for their information on the outcome of any case.

Ward ordered that Sega be remanded back into the custody of police.

JENNIFER TOFAEONO SCHEDULED TO ENTER GUILTY PLEA ON FRIDAY

Jennifer Tofaeono, LBJ hospital’s former business manager who’s facing charges of tampering with evidence, stealing, and embezzlement will enter a guilty plea this Friday. Tofaeono was charged last year when she returned to face the arrest warrant that was issued in her name while she was off island.

Following ongoing plea negotiations between ASG and the defendant, they settled the matter with a change of plea hearing that will take place this Friday. It’s unclear to what charge Tofaeono will plead guilty.  Tofaeono’s co-defendant in this case is Felise “Leesha” Toilolo.

Court filings say that the hospital’s former Finance Manager conducted an investigation in May 2013 into reports over the course of previous years, from May 2009 through June 2011, regarding credit cards that were being run on the LBJ credit card machines and the receipts used to collect cash from LBJ cashiers. Rather than the charges being deposited into LBJ accounts, they were instead voided through an LBJ merchant machine,