Kauai robber sentenced to over 15 years imprisonment

KAILUA-KONA — A 45-year-old Kauai man has been sentenced to serve to more than 15 years in prison for the November 2016 robbery of both a bank and a pharmacy on Kauai.

Walter Mills was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gillmor in Honolulu to serve 188 months imprisonment for the crimes. He must also pay $630 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release following his incarceration.

“I have to look at the safety of the community. The community is not safe when you are out and about,” Gillmor remarked at sentencing.

According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Kenji M. Price, Mills escaped Nov. 3, 2016, from Kauai Community Correctional Center and on the following day, Nov. 4, engaged in a “one-day crime spree.”

Price said that Mills first hit the First Hawaiian Bank in Lihue where he handed the bank teller a demand note that read “This is a robbery I have a gun count all the money in the drawer no die pack or mark money.” He received $480 in cash.

Mills then used the cash at a local Kmart store to purchase a BB gun. Thereafter, Mills committed a series of carjackings – brandishing the BB gun and stealing vehicles, regardless if the driver was still inside, Price said.

During one of the carjackings of an occupied vehicle, Mills demanded the owner to drive him to a pharmacy in Koloa. Once he entered the pharmacy, Mills held the BB gun in the air and demanded Oxycontin pills. He received the pills, fled, and continued on his carjacking spree. Mills was arrested in Hanapepe later that day.

The case was investigated by the Kauai Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the FBI, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Ayabe.