City attorneys agreed to pay $7 million to a boy left partially paralyzed after a September 2021 police chase led to a crash and alleged cover-up in Makaha.
In total, the September 12, 2021, police chase of a car leaving an early morning beach park party cost taxpayers at least $24 million. The incident is one of the most expensive civil cases in Honolulu history.
The $7 million settlement is pending approval by the Honolulu City Council.
The settlement was accepted by attorney Eric Seitz in Oahu Circuit Court on Thursday. Seitz represents the family of Dayton Gouveia, who was 14 years old at the time of the crash. The settlement offer came after at least two mediation sessions and one settlement conference were unsuccessful.
Seitz told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an interview that his team plans to seek “additional contributions” in the form of money from the driver of the car, who was paid $12.5 million; and the car’s owner, Perkins-Sinapati’s then-girlfriend.
Four other passengers injured in the early morning crash recently settled with the city for $4.5 million. Those passengers were 17, 18, 20 and 21 years old at the time of the crash.
“I am very dissatisfied with the way the matter was handled by city attorneys,” Seitz said.
Ian Scheuring, deputy communications director for Mayor Rick Blangiardi, told the Star-Advertiser in a statement that the “parties, with the assistance of the court and a mediator, have participated in settlement discussions over the course of several weeks.”
“The parties have reached a tentative settlement agreement that will be subject to City Council approval,” Scheuring wrote. “The city declines to comment further on the settlement agreement until members of the Honolulu City Council have had the opportunity to consider the offer.”
On September 11, Seitz filed a complaint alleging that the Honolulu Police Department’s motor vehicle pursuit policy was flawed.
The complaint alleges that HPD’s policy is “defective in that it gives officers exclusive authority to initiate a pursuit” and that it “fails to adequately instruct officers when a pursuit should not be initiated or terminated .”
The policy is “deliberately indifferent” to the risks of death, injury and property damage from “the public and nationals being pursued,” according to the complaint.
Seitz said he filed the federal civil complaint in part because a trial date for Gouveia in state court was not available until September and the city declined to make an offer to his client.
A second joint status report in the case was filed on Monday.
“The parties have agreed to settle the underlying case in the Circuit Court, and expect that the present case will be dismissed upon approval of the settlement by the court,” wrote Page CK Ogata, deputy corporate counsel. “The parties request that the present matter be stayed for an additional sixty days pending final resolution of the underlying matter in the Circuit Court.”
Perkins-Sinapati, who is in federal custody in May awaiting a preliminary hearing on drug and weapons charges.
Officers chased the car without lights or sirens until it crashed.
Three officers reportedly left the scene without rendering aid, but returned when 911 dispatchers directed them to the scene.
The trio of officers are said to have acted as if nothing had happened when they arrived at the crash site, and the department originally listed the incident online as a single-car crash.
The by the Honolulu Police Department in February.
Officers Joshua JS Nahulu, 37, Erik XK Smith, 25, and Jake RT Bartolome, 35, are out on bail. A fourth officer, Robert G. Lewis III, whose age has not been released, also faces criminal charges in connection with the crash and cover-up.
Nahulu, Smith and Bartolome filed a complaint against the department, and their terminations are not final.
Lewis was suspended for three days in 2023 for failing to “activate his body-worn camera (BWC) while responding to a noise complaint call” and after “arriving at the scene of the motor vehicle collision” and when he had contact with a witness, according to HPD’s January discipline report to the state Legislature.
Lewis also did not document in his filed report the facts and circumstances of the initial encounter with the suspect vehicle and/or the initiation of the pursuit by police officers.
He also concealed the involvement of the police officers in “the pursuit that was a direct cause of the (crash) and the involvement of the officers in fleeing the scene.”
Three other officers were disciplined in 2023 in connection with the incident.
Nahulu is charged with collision causing death or serious bodily injury for allegedly causing the crash near the corner of Farrington Highway and Orange Street, which paralyzed Gouveia and ejected Perkins-Sinapati, the driver of the white four-door Honda Civic 2000, left behind a traumatic brain. injury.
Nahulu faces a class B felony charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Smith, Bartolome and Lewis are charged with first-degree hindering prosecution, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
They were also charged with conspiracy to hinder prosecution in the first degree, a felony punishable by up to one year in prison.
All four entered not guilty pleas on March 23, 2023. Smith, Bartolome and Lewis were released after posting $5,000 bail, and Nahulu is free on $10,000 bail. They will stand trial on October 7.
Gouveia was a passenger and was paralyzed from the neck down for months. Doctors estimate in his civil lawsuit that the health care he will need throughout his life will cost about $7 million.
Gouveia struggles with depression and has permanent nerve damage and injuries to his neck and back that have led to mobility and balance problems and problems with internal functions.
