Jury finds Molokai man guilty of sexual assault
WAILUKU — A Molokai man was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman who testified he forced himself on her at her family’s home.
In verdicts returned Wednesday afternoon, a 2nd Circuit Court jury found Damien Paleka, 21, guilty of two counts of second-degree sexual assault. The jury, which deliberated for about four hours, couldn’t reach a verdict on another charge of first-degree sexual assault.
“We just appreciate the jury’s hard work,” said Deputy Prosecutor J.W. Hupp. “It was a difficult case.”
The 21-year-old woman testified Paleka sexually assaulted her in the early morning of Aug. 14, 2020, while he was staying at the house in Maunaloa where she lived with her mother and younger sister.
The woman said she had taken dinner to Paleka in a bedroom of the house and was trying to calm him down because he was upset after seeing a photo of someone he was dating with another man.
She said she was trying to get Paleka to go to sleep and was lying on the bed, as he had asked, with her back toward him when he grabbed her face and kissed her. “I just told him, ‘Stop it, go back to sleep,’ ” she said.
She said Paleka forced himself on her twice while she asked him to stop and go back to sleep.
“I kept trying to push him off of me,” she said.
She eventually managed to pull herself away and Paleka stopped.
The woman said she wanted to keep what was happening in the room and away from her mother and sister, who was sleeping in the living room with a friend.
“I wasn’t sure what to do,” she said. “I didn’t want my sister and her friend to see anything. I didn’t want my mom to see anything.”
She didn’t tell anyone what happened until that evening, when she told a friend who took the woman to the hospital.
On Maui, she later was examined by forensic sexual assault examiner Dr. William Kepler.
Paleka chose not to testify at his trial, and the defense argued the sex was consensual.
Hupp said the woman didn’t consent to sexual contact with Paleka.
“She clearly said no,” he said. “It does not have to be in writing or by word. It can by body language.”
Paleka, who is being held in lieu of $75,000 bail at the Maui Community Correctional Center, is set to be sentenced Aug. 30 on the felony charges, which carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Judge Kelsey Kawano presided over the trial.