State seeks life for crime spree

KEALAKEKUA — The state refused a plea offer in the case of a convicted felon charged with 23 offenses from an August 2015 crime spree.

The trial began Tuesday. Prosecutors are seeking life in prison, in part due to the suspect’s previous felonies.

Darren “Shorty” Grace, 35, was arrested on Aug. 21, 2015, with what police say were stolen goods from crimes committed over four days, after he allegedly threatening a man with a pistol.

“You will hear evidence that over a four-day period the defendant committed 23 offenses,” deputy prosecuting attorney Kauanoe Jackson told the jury.

Defense attorney Terri Fujioka-Lilley had a different view. She compared the case to a puzzle with missing pieces.

“This will be a whodunit,” she said.

Jackson laid out a timeline from Aug. 18-21, 2015, when she said Grace was engaged in numerous burglaries and a robbery. Fujioka-Lilley said the crimes happened, but her client is not guilty of those.

The first was when a .45 caliber Glock pistol with ammunition and other ammo was stolen from a home, Jackson said — a gun that would be the center of a confrontation later.

Grace was part of a group of four people, she said, serving as the driver for much of the time.

On Aug. 19, the group happened upon a man’s truck, which was parked before he went to work in the coffee field. After it was stolen, Grace was seen driving the truck away with the vehicle’s bed empty, Jackson said. In the truck was the victim’s identification, wallet and passport, which were later recovered from Grace’s backpack.

Notably, Fujioka-Lilley said, Grace is not charged with the actual theft of the truck, only its operation. She explained that was the result of one of the other people admitting they stole the truck.

Driving off, “he begins to fill the bed of that truck,” Jackson said, with stolen items. Part of that was a laptop, a new safe and luggage still loaded from a move occupants just made into a Waikoloa home.

On the 20th Grace is charged with a burglary and theft. He allegedly stole a two-gallon water cooler from a work site at NELHA. Jackson said he then “squeezed” the truck onto private property, taking a compressor. Grace was sighted by the caretaker, she said, who talked to him and saw him wait until another resident left to get out past the gate.

“And on Aug. 21, everything comes to a close,” Jackson said, as the four were seen in an apartment’s underground parking lot.

“They check all the cars. Damaging them, breaking into them. They’re working together, but the defendant has one other job,” she said.

That came when a resident heard the noise and came down, she said. Realizing the suspects had come in the truck, the resident took the keys, according to police accounts.

Then Grace got his backpack and drew the pistol and demanded the keys, Jackson said.

The victim threw the keys into the truck and left, according to a police report, while Grace and the others drove off. The four were later arrested, with Grace hanging the backpack containing the gun on a bush, Jackson said.

Fujioka-Lilley questioned whether the witness who identified Grace would have been able to do so in a dark parking lot at 5 a.m., while the suspect was supposedly covering his face with a T-shirt.

The defense highlighted that there were four people “effectively living in the truck” and involved in the offenses. The other three have stories that place the blame on Grace, but two have told different versions at different times.

“I anticipate with the case that you will find that my client is guilty of some of the charges,” she said, adding that would include the unlawful operation of a motor vehicle.

“This is a case about solving a puzzle,” she said, and the prosecution has to fill in the gaps in order to find Grace guilty. In those gaps is the “reasonable doubt” that Grace was the person who committed all the offenses.

The firearms charges hinge on Grace being a convicted felon illegally in possession of a firearm. He agreed that the jury would be informed about the prior convictions without being challenged.

The prosecution made no plea offer. The defense’s offer, that he would plead guilty to eight counts in exchange for up to 10 years in prison, was refused by the prosecution.