Puna man guilty of mother’s slaying

HILO — A Hilo Circuit Court jury has convicted a 43-year-old Pahoa man for stabbing his mother to death three years ago.

It took almost two full days of deliberation for the jury of seven men and five women to find Sean Rutledge guilty of second-degree murder for the death of 63-year-old Nadean Rutledge. The naked body of the information officer for the Wai‘opae Tide Pools was found by another of her sons, Daniel Rutledge, under a bed sheet beneath a trash pile in a side yard of her Kapoho Vacationland subdivision home in the early evening of Aug. 25, 2015. She had been stabbed six times.

The subdivision, as well as the tide pools, were inundated in June by lava from Kilauea volcano’s lower East Rift Zone eruption.

Rutledge remained stoic as the verdict was read and individual jurors polled by a court clerk to confirm their agreement with the verdict about 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

After Judge Henry Nakamoto and attorneys from both sides thanked the jurors for their service, Rutledge grabbed the microphone at the defense table and said, “I would like to thank the jury as well. Thank you.”

Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Hashizaki said after the hearing that he was pleased the jury “took a look at the evidence and found Mr. Rutledge guilty.”

“We respect the jury’s decision and verdict,” said Brian De Lima, Rutledge’s court-appointed defense counsel.

Rutledge, who has remained behind bars since his arrest, faces a mandatory life prison term with the possibility of parole when he is sentenced at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 11.

A former lawyer, Rutledge was disbarred in New York under the name Alan Frank. He was allowed to surrender his law license in California instead of facing disbarment hearings.

In 2012, the Orange County Superior Court entered a $37.7 million judgment against United Law Group, co-founded by Rutledge and businessman Damian Kutzner, for swindling mortgage relief clients. By then, the firm was in bankruptcy and about 1,700 class-action claimants received only about $90 each.

After Nadean Rutledge’s body was found, Sean Rutledge became the subject of a police manhunt. He was arrested the following morning near Pahoa on a California extradition warrant for allegedly violating his parole after being convicted in that state for a criminal threat to cause great bodily injury.

Although California authorities didn’t extradite Rutledge, there were numerous delays in bringing him to trial. On at least one occasion, he refused to be removed from his cell to appear in court. In several early court appearances, he displayed odd mannerisms such as closing his eyes and then fluttering his eyelids rapidly.

His former defense counsel, Stanton Oshiro, requested and was granted a mental examination for Rutledge. Psychologists Marvin Acklin and Frederic Manke and psychiatrist Dr. Martin Blinder all found Rutledge fit to stand trial.

Suzanne Fritsch, a friend of the slain woman, told the Tribune-Herald in September 2015 that Nadean Rutledge “loved her children with all her heart, and at great personal risk she brought Sean to Hawaii, hoping to keep him safe.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.