Pinoy in Hawaii identity theft case jailed 30 years

The Filipino who was convicted in June of stealing the identity of his Hawaiian business partner has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Henry Ponce Jacinto Calucag Jr., also known as Hank Jacinto and other aliases, sat quietly in court when Honolulu Circuit Court Judge Michael Town’s sentence was read in court on Sept. 7 (Saturday in Manila). The 58-year-old Calucag was earlier found guilty of eight felony counts of credit card fraud, forgery, fraudulent use of a computer, and theft of the identify of John Elwin, 50, resident of Kauai, Hawaii, according to a report Sunday on Honolulu Advertiser. In May 2006, Elwin was found dead in a northern Luzon province two weeks after traveling to the Philippines with Calucag to buy a condominium unit. Later, Calucag was found to have used Elwin’s credit cards and assuming ownership of the Hawaii businessman’s property worth more than $245,000. Elwin’s longtime friend Luis Saltren noted that Calucag was convicted of using Elwin's credit cards after he disappeared but before his body was discovered. "He knew John was dead," Saltren said, calling the fraud "a crime that only works when the victim is dead." He described Jacinto as “evil" who deserved the maximum penalty. Defense attorney Mark Kawata protested that much of the testimony at Friday's sentencing concerned the murder of Elwin, a crime that Calucag has not been charged with. Kawata noted that, given Calucag's age, a prison sentence of 20 years was the equivalent of a life sentence. The mandatory minimum sentence Calucag must serve before being eligible for parole is 6 1/2 years in prison, but Van Marter said his office would ask the Paroling Authority to increase that minimum term. Earlier reports from Honolulu said Calucag faced up to 70 years in prison for convictions on charges ranging from first-degree identity theft to second-degree forgery. The jury took almost two days to hand down a guilty verdict on Calucag on June 8. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Van Marter called it a "substantial sentence" for a man convicted of eight felony counts of credit-card fraud, forgery, fraudulent use of a computer and identity theft, according to the Advertiser report. The sentence also shows that an international task force of law enforcement agencies has made "substantial improvements" in its investigation of Calucag's possible involvement in Elwin's death, as well as a similar disappearance of Douglas Ho of Honolulu in the Philippines in 2005, Van Marter said. A third disappearance of a Honolulu man, Arthur Young, also a friend of Calucag, in the Philippines in 1989 is also being probed, Van Marter said. The judge declared a mistrial on a remaining count of identity theft in which Calucag was accused of using Elwin's credit card to charge a first-class plane ticket to the Philippines. His family filed a missing persons report with Kauai police on May 15, 2006, after Elwin failed to call his 15-year-old daughter in Texas on her birthday. During the trial, it was shown that Calucag went to the Philippines with Elwin in early 2006. Calucag returned to Hawaii without Elwin. On May 16, 2006, Philippine police found Elwin’s body with a gunshot in the head. Calucag was said to have used Elwin’s credit cards and forged his signature to purchase more than $2,000 worth of polo equipment. Professional con man Van Marter described Calucag as a "professional con man." Calucag has a prior bank fraud conviction. Prosecutors contend that the thefts, including $245,000 Calucag received from Elwin for the sale of a Philippine condo and kept even after the deal fell through and the transfer of Elwin's $50,000 Land Rover to Calucag, were fraudulent. "In our view, that type of theft provides a strong motive for homicide," Van Marter said. Calucag's defense was that he was involved in business ventures with Elwin and legally received the undeveloped property as partial payment for debts Elwin owed him. The Oahu jury listened to 34 witnesses for nearly a month of trial. Elwin’s brother expressed relief about the guilty verdict but hoped Calucag would eventually face murder charges. The jury did not hear testimonies on how Elwin died. Luis Soltren, Elwin’s best friend and executor of his estate, said authorities need to discover what happened to Arthur Young and Douglas Ho, two men who also disappeared after traveling to the Philippines with Calucag. “I believe that he should be brought up on murder charges and I’m going to keep doing my best to see that happens," Soltren said. America's Most Wanted Hawaiian investigators also are looking into the disappearances in the Philippines of two other men who had business dealings with Calucag. Calucag was on America’s Most Wanted, and described him as a “bank fraud convict" for his involvement in a “trail of theft, fraud and disappearances" over the last 10 years. Police in Hawaii said three of Calucag’s business partners all went on separate trips to the Philippines to buy property, but none of them ever returned home. Police finally cornered him on September 3, 2006 after a polo match in Honolulu where he was known as Hank Jacinto. Aliases AMW’s website said Calucag used several aliases – Ponce Enriquez, Bill Franco, Ricky Bonze, Hank Calucag, Henry Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag, Henry Ponce Calucag Jr., Henry Y. Jacinto, Hank Calvcag, Henry Ponce Calvcag Jr, Blu Franco, Henry P. Jacinto, Enrique Jacinto, Enrique Ponce Jacinto, Hank Jacinto, Henry Jacinto, Herman Rubirosa and Hernon Rubirosa. Prosecutors in Hawaii have called him a “career criminal" who duped and conned Hawaiian businessmen for years and that the ventures he started in the Philippines point to more of the same. “With his capture, they hope that a prolific con man’s legacy of deceit has been ended," AMW said. In the trial earlier this year, Christopher Elwin, a brother of the Kauai businessman, revealed that Elwin had money in Swiss bank accounts when he died. Elwin’s girlfriend, Kirsten Flood, said Calucag called her months after Elwin’s death with a disturbing information that “John had women pregnant in, like Southeast Asia, somewhere." A report on Hawaii broadcast channel’s website said the defense tried to portray Elwin as a womanizer who had enemies in the Philippines. The report said Calucag claimed that Elwin gave him a property in Kauai to pay off a large debt, but a Kauai police officer said that the Filipino did not tell him about the debt when he interviewed him following his arrest in September. Police earlier said Elwin’s had cash assets worth more than a couple of million dollars when he died. Case profile According to the case profile in AMW’s website, Hawaiian police found out that apart from Elwin, two of Calucag’s business partners – Arthur Young and Douglas Ho – disappeared on separate trips to the Philippines. Young disappeared in 1990 while Ho traveled with Calucag in 2004 and was reported missing by his family in January 2005. Money, property, or both money and property of the three men allegedly ended up in Calucag’s possession after their disappearance or death. “Investigators on the Calucag case say he’s a master con artist who may be responsible for swindling millions of dollars in cash and property away from their rightful owners," the case profile stated. Calucag claimed to own ProNetwork Center, purportedly a successful tech company engaged in business with the Office of Homeland Security. Its office address, police found out, was a single mailbox in the Philippines and there was no Homeland Security contract. Prior to his arrest in September, the company’s website, AMW said, boasted of an annual revenue of $65 million, employed 63 people and contracts with the US Department of Defense. After the arrest, the company website no longer mentioned Hank Jacinto or ProNetwork’s annual earnings and reduced the staff to only 16. Before venturing into ‘"business" in Hawaii, Calucag was said to be driving a beat-up car in the Philippines, lived above a friend’s paint shop and, at one time, borrowed a small amount from another friend. Polo enthusiast AMW said Calucag had known Elwin way back in 1994 when he was able to move within the elite polo community in Hawaii, using the alias Hank Jacinto. At one time, it was said that Calucag was asked to leave a polo club after he was accused of stealing a pair of one-of-a-kind riding boots from another club member. In 1995, he reportedly pleaded guilty to five counts of bank fraud for depositing five bogus checks into accounts he opened using false names and withdrawing the money. He spent eight months in federal prison for the offense. After that, he supposedly served an additional 16 months in federal prison after admitting that he bought a sport utility car and obtained leases on computers using aliases and false credit histories while on parole. Two months after his arrest in Honolulu in September last year, America’s Most Wanted said its agents traveled to the Philippines to investigate the businesses Calucag established in Hawaii. Calucag also listed Philippine Escrow and Title Corp and an orphanage program called The Philippine Mission Foundation among his engagements. All listed a business office in Quezon City. But AMW said the office address given “didn’t look like the offices of a multi-million dollar corporations" as it housed only a few desks and neighboring businesses interviewed said workers came and went with little frequency. - GMANews.TV