Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A man from Vaitogi has been convicted of escape from confinement, a felony punishable by imprisonment of not more than 5 years, and/ or a fine of not more than $5,000 or both.

Under a plea agreement, Kolose Tautua, 29, admits that on/ or about April 24, 2019, he escaped from the Territorial Correctional Facility (TCF) while serving a 5-year sentence handed down in 2017 for second-degree assault and sexual abuse in the first degree.

The government is recommending that Tautua be sentenced to an additional 5 years in jail, to run consecutively (one after the other) with his previous sentence.

Tautua is not new to the justice system. He first appeared in court back in 2011 where he was convicted of assaulting a taxi driver by punching him in the face while he was inside the car. At the time, he was ordered to serve 20 months imprisonment as a condition of a 5-year probation term.

A few months after he was released in 2013, police arrested him again for assaulting another man and stealing his wallet. In that case, Tautua was convicted of second-degree assault and ordered to serve 5 years in prison.

In 2017 he was arrested and later convicted of assaulting another man after the man confronted him for sexually abusing the man’s 16-year-old niece. He was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment — a straight sentence. While serving his sentence in 2019, Tautua escaped from the TCF.

He will be sentenced next month.