Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 3, 1 March 2007 — Kanupa sentence [ARTICLE]

Kanupa sentence

A federal judge has handed down a maximum one-year prison sentence to a man who pleaded guilty to stealing funerary objects from a Hawai'i Island burial cave and selling them on the hlaek market in lune 2004. John Carta was charged with violating federal burial laws when he sold objects taken from Kanupa Cave, located in South Kohala on Hawai'i Island. The objects, known as the J.S. Emerson Collection, were originally removed from the

cave in the 1800s, and later reburied in the same cave by the burial repatriation group Hui Mālama i nā Kūpuna o Hawai'i nei in 2003. The items in the eolleehon include a spear, a water gourd, kapa and wooden bowls. Daniel Taylor, who allegedly worked with Carta, has already pleaded guilty for his role in the crime and is awaiting his sentencing in May. Meanwhile, Edward Halealoha Ayau, the director of Hui Mālama, criticized the state attorney general's office for not prosecuting Carta and Taylor for violations

of state law stemming from the case, including trespassing and theft.