City to pay $12.5M to Makaha crash driver

The city agreed to pay $12.5 million to the driver of a car that crashed in September 2021 in Makaha during a pursuit by Honolulu police officers who allegedly left the scene only to return and act like nothing happened.

Jonaven Perkins-Sinapati, 38, suffered a traumatic brain injury and will never work again, his attorney, Michael Green, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an interview.

“He’ll never work as long as he lives. He’ll have to watch his kids without participating in anything. We tried to give him some quality of life,” said Green, who noted the settlement came as the result of mediation. “Shame on these guys (the officers involved). They chased him down and drove him into a ditch, and then they ran away. The city lawyers fought us tooth and nail to protect the taxpayers, and I respect that. My job is to give this kid quality of life.”

Green said annuities and other financial support tools are being set up to ensure Perkins-Sinapati does not have to “worry about income.”

Green said Perkins-Sinapati has little use of his left arm and hand. Perkins-Sinapati struggles to speak clearly and displays behavior that is comparable to stroke victims who lose partial or total control of critical functions.

The settlement is one of the largest paid out by the city that Green can remember in connection with an incident involving HPD.

The city declined comment, citing “pending litigation by another plaintiff involved in the same incident,” Ian Scheuring, deputy communications director, told the Star-Advertiser.

Seven officers have been disciplined by the department in connection with the Sept. 12, 2021, incident, originally described to the public as a single-car accident. Three Honolulu police officers have been fired, and they, along with a fourth officer, go to trial in June on state criminal charges.

Early on Sept. 12, 2021, officers Joshua J.S. Nahulu, 37, Erik X.K. Smith, 25, and Jake R.T. Bartolome, 35, allegedly engaged in a high-speed pursuit of a car filled with six revelers from a beach park in Makaha.

They were terminated this year and are in the grievance process outlined by the city’s collective bargaining agreement with the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers.

Nahulu, Smith, Bartolome and officer Robert G. Lewis III entered not-guilty pleas on March 23, 2023, in connection with the ongoing criminal case and go to trial June 3.

Nahulu is charged with collisions involving death or serious bodily injury for allegedly causing the crash near the corner of Farring­ton Highway and Orange Street, in which a teenager was paralyzed and Perkins-Sinapati, driver of a white, four-door 2000 Honda Civic, was left with a traumatic brain injury.

Nahulu faces a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Lewis, whose age was not released, also faces criminal charges in connection with the crash and cover-up.

Smith, Bartolome and Lewis are charged with first-degree hindering prosecution, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. They were also charged with conspiracy to commit hindering prosecution in the first degree, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

On that early September morning in 2021, the car driven by Perkins-Sinapati crashed, throwing some of the occupants from the car.

The officers allegedly drove away without stopping to help. They allegedly did not use their sirens or blue lights while in pursuit. They returned to the scene of the accident after being dispatched by 911.

Upon arriving on-scene, they allegedly acted like they had no idea what happened.

Nahulu had a long-
running feud with Perkins-
Sinapati, attorneys allege in the civil suits against the city. Perkins-Sinapati, driver of the Civic that had six people in it when it crashed, suffered brain damage and was on life support after the accident.

Dayton Gouveia, 14 at the time of the crash, was a passenger and was paralyzed for months from the neck down. Doctors estimate in a separate civil suit that the health care serv­ices he will need throughout his life will cost about $7 million.

Gouveia is working through depression and has permanent nerve damage and injuries to his neck and back that have led to mobility and balance issues and problems with internal functions.

Four other passengers who sustained injuries in the early morning crash recently settled with the city for $4.5 million. Those passengers were 17, 18, 20 and 21 at the time of the crash.

Gouveia’s family attorney, Eric Seitz, told the Star-
Advertiser that it is “bizarre” that the city has paid out $17 million to settle civil actions connected to the case but has not agreed to pay Gouveia, who suffered the most serious injuries.

Lewis was suspended in 2023 for three days for failing to “activate his body-worn camera (BWC) when he responded to a call for a noise complaint” and after “arriving at the scene of the motor vehicle collision” when he interacted with a witness, according to HPD’s annual discipline report.

Lewis also didn’t “document in his submitted report the facts and circumstances of the initial encounter with the suspect vehicle and/or the initiation of the pursuit by police officers.”

He also concealed the officers’ involvement in “the pursuit that was a proximate cause of the MVC and the officers’ involvement in fleeing from the scene.”

Officer Rommel Baysa is grieving a seven-day suspension, and officer Wade Thomas-Nakagawa is in grievance proceedings over a five-day suspension in connection with the chase, crash and alleged cover-up.

Baysa and Thomas-
Nakagawa failed to “make notification that officers were involved in a critical incident” and didn’t ensure that the body-worn cameras of the involved officers were promptly recovered and that the officers were promptly relieved and sequestered.

Both officers didn’t “conduct a thorough inquiry into a witness’s statement that the suspect vehicle was being pursued by police vehicles at the time of the motor vehicle collision,” and their lack of supervision of subordinate officers at the scene resulted “in an improper and/or incomplete investigation of the incident being conducted” and helped “investigating officers to conceal the police officers’ involvement in Makaha incident,” according to HPD’s discipline report

Thomas-Nakagawa also used force “against a male at the scene and did not document it in an incident report form.”

Officer Fetia Solomon is grieving a three-day suspension she received for her role in the Makaha case.

Solomon didn’t tell “supervisors and investigators at the scene that a witness was alleging police involvement in the crash that happened after the police pursuit.”

She also didn’t get a “complete and thorough statement from the witness and failed to document the witness’s statement and/or contact information in her submitted police report.”

Solomon also submitted a collision report that left out the officers’ involvement, and she covered her body-worn camera to hide an encounter with a witness.

Solomon also “concealed the police officers’ involvement in the pursuit and the officers’ involvement in fleeing from the scene.”