The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 3

ihj ii 1 (Tf-ni i ill Briefs Hawaii Police Beat, A4 Obituaries, A7.C5" A3 The Honolulu Advertiser City Editor. Dan Nakaso, 525-8090 Tuesday, April 18,1995 Guard plan cuts Halawa inmate privileges sick or take compensatory time off. Public Safety Director George Iranon said the pro- grams first day By Ann Botticelli Advertiser Capitol Bureau Inmates at Halawa Correctional Facility did without library and gymnasium privileges yesterday. The prison's inmate work program was also shut down, with prisoners confined to their modules. It was Day 1 of the state's plan to cut prison guard overtime costs, which hit $7.5 million this fiscal year.

From now on, the Halawa prison warden will suspend inmate programs rather than call in extra staff to cover for guards who call in outside and vent," the guard said in a phone call to The Advertiser. He worried that there would not be enough staff to handle a fight between inmates. In a written statement yesterday, Iranon said the plan was implemented after consulting with the United Public Workers Union, which represents the 308 Halawa prison guards. He pointed out that only 69 of the 95 guards scheduled for the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

shift at Halawa showed up for work yesterday. But that was more than the "average" number of 53 guards who report to work for the day shift. By making do with the staff on hand instead of calling in extra help, the state will save $300,000 a month at the Halawa facility alone "without reducing inmate security or worker safety," Iranon said. And he said the program will be expanded to cover all eight of the state's prisons within the next two months. But American Civil Liberties cooperating attorney Carl Vara-dy said the staffing plan can't be implemented at Oahu Community Correction Center and the Women's Community Correctional Center without violating a court-ordered consent decree to reduce prison overcrowding and improve conditions at those prisons.

The 1985 decree requires a certain number of hours be devoted to inmate programs, Var-ady said. "If we find out that they are not adhering to that agreement and to the mandates of the court order we'll go to court right away," Varady said. was a success. But a day shift guard who asked not to be identified said the facility was "running unsafe right now." "These guys are all locked Iranon up and they're all getting frus- iraiea Decause they can go mm It Expected to let up by tomorrow By Jan TenBruggencate Advertiser Staff Writer In some areas, gusts have hit 65 mph. And atop Haleaka-la the University of Hawaii's Mees Solar Observatory had to shut down.

"It's blowing pretty good, but these buildings have all withstood 100 miles an hour and upwards," said Andrew Sheinis, optical engineer at the Mees Observatory. "We were getting gusts to 60 and 65 miles an hour. The Mees did not observe today because it shakes the telescope too much." Blame this gusty weather on a strong high pressure area to Hawaii's north and low pressures to the south. And it isn't expected to die down until tomorrow. Elsewhere in the state, the main problem was isolated power outages caused by tree branches and other debris hitting power lines.

Maui Electric supervisor Art Takabayashi said such an im- Eact knocked out power to 350 omes in Makawao yesterday morning. But crews already in the area were able to restore .1 US: 9 Jnouye suggests that Ka'u harvest for MREs HILO, Hawaii Former rICa'u sugar workers could someday be feeding GIs, un-. der an idea floated yesterday by U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.

Inouye, speaking to the Big Jsland Press Club, revealed plans to find crops that can used in military rations and create replacement jobs in the rural southern part of the Big Island where sugar is being phased out. Unemployment already is high there and the remaining -200 sugar jobs are being lost with the shutdown of the island's last plantation next year. Inouye said one idea is to grow banana and papaya for dehydrated fruit mixes to be included in MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat the plastic-bagged successor to the K-ration. KHNL news debuts with an unusual style Faster, louder and flaunting new high-tech gear, Hawaii's fourth nightly newscast debuted last night when KHNL's News8 went on the air at 9:05. Dan Cook and' sports anchor Robert Ke-kaula sat at the sky-blue set, heading a fast-paced show designed to appeal to the Fox Network affiliate's young viewers.

For a story on rising sewer fees, reporter Lyle Galdeira flushed dollar bills down a toilet. Man-in-the-street interviews were done in handheld, shaky-camera style. Much of the newscast was about itself. Washington correspondent Tom Ackerman went live (3 a.m. D.C.

time) for a story on KHNL's Washington bureau. Cook displayed live shots from Hilo, Maui and Kauai, then showed off a computer-generated, three-dimensional weather map in which viewers are "flown" over the state. "Some serious toys," Ke-kaula said. "Not toys, tools," Cook responded. Senate approves three nominated by, Cayetano Gov.

Ben Cayetano's cabinet was nearly completed yesterday when the Senate three more of his nominees. Senators unanimously confirmed Earl Anzai as director of budget and finance, Lorraine Akiba as director of la- bor and industrial relations and Mike Wilson as director of land and natural resources. Cayetano's final nominee, Lawrence Miike for health di- rector, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Executive Appointments committee today. Committee Chairwoman Majama Solomon said the committee has some concerns over Miike's angry response to public criticisms of his former post as president of Planned Parenthood. Budget shortfall may close Makiki library 21,000 people who use "the city-funded Makiki library may have to find another library starting July 1.

Closing the facility is one of the options the City Council, trying to make up a $75 million budget shortfall, is considering to send to the state. With the exception of the Makiki facility, libraries fall under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Education. But the Makiki library was started in 1976 by the city with the state's promise to take over its operations, which presently cost $46,000 a year. Psychologist admits $155,000 billing fraud A Honolulu psychologist pleaded guilty yesterday to submitting false bills to the Hawaii Medical Services Association, the Medicaid program and the Department of Defense, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Nancy Knight, 67, admitted she received $155,000 from her false billings, the office said. She pleaded guilty to three felony charges. She faces maximum prison terms of five years for each of the felony counts. Staff and wire reports Advertiser photo by Cory Lum A fleet of land sailors in Australian-made "kite buggies" harnessed yesterday's gusts in their quadrefoil sails at Kapiolani Park. place the fallen line reported "it was really howling," Takabayashi said.

About 1,200 Puna homes from Mountain View to Volcano, on the Big Island, were without power Saturday night after gusts up to 60 mph toppled a tree along Volcano Highway, snapping electric and telephone lines. National Weather Service lead forecaster Bob Lee said high-elevation and low-elevation high pressure systems settled in one atop the other, to form an extra strong system. "It's a huge high" close to 900 miles in diameter, he said. There is a large area of low pressure in the warm waters to the south of the Islands. High-pressure areas blow the winds away from themselves, and low pressure systems suck them in, with Hawaii caught in the middle.

The rotation of the Earth makes the systems spin, which is why our winds are blowing east to west rather than north to south. Lee said forecasters expect the high pressure system to weaken tomorrow, in part because a storm system coming in from the northwest. That could mean considerably lighter tradewinds by the end of the week. Advertiser Staff Writers Hugh Clark and Edwin Tanji contributed to this report. the line in 15 minutes, Takabayashi said.

The wind also caused several major lines to fail over the weekend, including the transmission iine at the Haleakala summit at about midnight Saturday, he said. Power to the summit was out for about two hours. Workers who had to re- Rivera-Rios guilty of transvestite's murder Autoerotic-death defense rejected Isle residents scramble to beat the deadline for paying Uncle Sam in women's clothing and the cord wrapped twice tightly around his neck. During the three-week trial, Takata contended that Rivera-Rios strangled the victim with the cord after he learned that Bernardes, who had performed oral sex on him, was actually a man. The key prosecution witness was Rivera-Rios' companion, Wilfredo Perez, who testified that the two picked up Bernardes in Wahiawa, smoked crystal By Christopher Neil Advertiser Staff Writer "I'm dyin'," Kim Dewey said.

Well, you know what they say about death and taxes. Dewey, 23, of Palolo, sat in the Internal Revenue Service's offices at the Federal Building downtown yesterday, staring glumly at her tax return. A crowd of people swarmed about her all of them trying to make yesterday's deadline for Cut to Steve Vaughn, 43, who works as a security guard. "I'm late," Vaughn said cheerfully. "I'm always late.

Every year, I'm late." Unlike Dewey, Vaughn said he was expecting a refund from Uncle Sam. He usually does, he said, but he's never bothered to file early. "Deadline day is like any other," he said. "I don't let it get to me." A man who identified himself only as Jeff, who manages a Waikiki camera shop, said he DIDN'T FILE YET? 1 1 1 ii 4 metnamphetamine with him and later ended up at the beach. He said he saw the defendant strangling Bernardes with the cord.

Wilkowski argued that Perez couldn't be believed and that Bernardes' death was con By Ken Kobayashi Advertiser Courts Writer It was the first time that the defense has ever been raised here. And it kept a Circuit Court jury deliberating for more than a day and a half. But in the end, the panel yesterday rejected the defense that a male transvestite strangled himself accidentally while masturbating. The seven men and five women convicted Ventura Jorge Rivera-Rios of murdering Raymond "Tina" Bernardes. "I think the defense made my job easier," city Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Takata said.

"The nature of the defense is something that most people are not aware of so I thought it was harder for (the defense) to sell something like that to the jury." Rivera-Rios did not testify and showed no emotion when the verdict was announced, but his attorney Mary Wilkowski said he was disappointed. She said it's difficult to speculate whether the defense was so farfetched that the jurors couldn't accept it, but said the defense was "appropriate and supported by the evidence in the case." "I hope this trial brought to public awareness the danger involved in this practice," she said. Rivera-Rios, 27, now faces a mandatory life term with parole when he is sentenced by Circuit Judge Sandra Simms on July 27. The jury found him guilty of strangling Bernardes, 22, with a bungee cord at Mokuleia Beach in August 1991. Bernardes' body was later found filing their federal income tax forms.

Four IRS "assis-ters" dealt with a long line of people gathered under the fluorescent lights, dealing out advice and extension forms. "I've seen about 250 people today -at least," said a shell-shocked Mitzi Briones, who's worked for the IRS for about 18 years. Rivera-Rios had to take the day off to come downtown and file his tax forms. "I moved and didn't get the forms in the mail," he said. "This is the first year I've been late and it's a pain in the butt.

I know I did it to myself. But it's still a pain in the butt and you can quote me on that." IRS spokeswoman Shawn George says sistent with the prac- Didn't file your federal taxes by yesterday's deadline? Didn't get an extension, either? You're in trouble. But it'll get worse if you don't file as quickly as possible, IRS spokeswoman Shawn George said. Every day you delay means additional penalties and interest Meanwhile, you still have time to make (or miss) the state tax deadline. It's Thursday.

tice of autoerotic asphyxiation, the practice of cutting off oxygen to the brain during masturbation to enhance the sensation. The defense called to the stand Terence Allen, a forensic pathologist who testified that the death was in line with autoerotic asphyxiation. He said Bernardes didn't have other injuries associated with strangulation murders. The prosecution's expert was Kanthi De Alwis, first deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy and testified that she ruled out autoerotic asphyxiation. She said one telling sign was that the 24-inch bungee cord did not have padding or a "self-rescue mechanism" to enable the person to release the pressure before lapsing into unconsciousness and dying.

I taking a couple days off next week." There's no stereotypical late filer, Brione said. Dewey said this is the first year she's filed so late. It's also the first year she's self-employed, she said. "It's all filled out but I just don't have the money to pay it," she said. "I didn't plan well enough.

I'm going to file for an extension and ask for a payment schedule." there are more late Hawaii filers this year than there were last year. As of April 7, she said, about 283,387 state residents had filed about 3 percent fewer than last year. An estimated 45,000 people filed extension requests. By the way, George and Brione said they've already filed their tax forms. The IRS encourages its employees to file on time, they said..