AR-News: (US) HI: man receives 2 life sentences in cockfighting deaths

[cathy goeggel]

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Mar/10/ln/ln29a.html

Man receives two life sentences

An O'ahu man was sentenced yesterday to two terms of life in prison with the
possibility of parole for his role in a November 2001 brawl that left one
man dead and another severely beaten after a cockfight in Kalihi.

Circuit Judge Marie Milks found Evan Kakugawa, 35, guilty of second-degree
murder in the death of Leon Fernandez, 39, and attempted murder in the
beating of Eufracio Esmeralda, who was 41 at the time. Kakugawa will be
allowed to serve the two life terms concurrently.

He was one of four men who got into an argument with Esmeralda and Fernandez
over the outcome of a cockfight at a home on Bannister Street. Police said
the house was the only known location in urban Honolulu where cockfights
took place on a regular basis.