ST. GEORGE — A man who pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in Washington County recently appeared in court for sentencing where both sides argued for a similar outcome, but neither argument swayed the judge.
Faavae Etiseli Tuinei, 46, of Salt Lake City, appeared in 5th District Court on Sept. 12 to be sentenced for failing to register as a sex offender, a third-degree felony, to which he pleaded guilty during a hearing held July 11. The two remaining counts for the same offense were dismissed in exchange for a guilty plea.
Tooele investigation
The case was filed following an investigation that began June 2 when Tooele County authorities contacted St. George law enforcement alleging Tuinei was communicating with a minor on social media.
According to charging documents, the Tooele Police Department tracked the suspect to a St. George address that turned out to be a homeless shelter. While investigating the alleged misconduct, officers learned Tuinei had submitted an application in October 2022 to stay at the local shelter but was not eligible due to his status on the sex offender registry, court records stated.
St. George Police confirmed that Tuinei was required to register as a sex offender for life following a prior conviction in Hawaii, which also included a requirement to register any social media accounts, including the Facebook account reportedly used to communicate with the Tooele County teen.
Officers in St. George discovered Tuinei had failed to register his place of employment, Lava Heights Academy, in Toquerville. Had he done so, the Utah Department of Corrections administrators would have contacted the youth treatment facility to inform them of the defendant’s registered sex offender requirements.
The statewide warrant was issued out of Washington County on June 15. Three days later, Tuinei was booked into a Salt Lake County jail on a misdemeanor drug charge following his arrest at a homeless shelter there. One week later, Tuinei was returned to Southern Utah to face the current charges filed against him in St. George.
Two cases in Washington City
The arrest that prompted the felony charges is one of several arrests for Tuinei since February. He caught the attention of authorities in Washington City after using a false name to gain employment at the city’s community center, which is designated as a “protected area,” due to the pool area frequented by children.
Tuinei was terminated 20 days later after the center discovered he was a registered sex offender. He was subsequently charged with one misdemeanor sex offender in a protected area violation. A warrant was issued for his arrest in that case after he failed to appear in court in March. Two months later, he pleaded guilty to the charge and was given credit for the 25 days in jail he served since his arrest on May 16. He was then placed on bench probation for 12 months and released from jail.
Less than a month later, he was arrested at the homeless shelter in Salt Lake City on the Tooele case, which led to charges being filed for the incident in St. George.
Arguments by the defense
During the hearing held in St. George on Sept. 12, Tuinei’s defense attorney Larry Meyers asked the court to give his client a chance to succeed on probation with Adult Probation and Parole.
Tuinei has struggled with several issues since his release from prison, including bouts of homelessness, substance use and unemployment, Meyers said. He added that his client is employable with a number of job skills, and steady employment should be one of the requirements of his probation, should that be the sentence.
Meyers said that taking away the charges that were dismissed prior to sentencing actually placed his client closer to the matrix that would allow for probation, as opposed to sending his client to prison.
“Give him the chance to be in line with adult probation and parole, for them to supervise him to make sure he is registered properly,” the prosecutor said, adding that supervision would also make sure the defendant maintains a residence and a job, which would set him up for success.
He also explained that his client’s crime in Hawaii was not a violent crime, as was erroneously stated in the presentence report. Instead, the crime was “essentially electronic voyeurism — he was using electronic equipment to try to record women in a bathroom or in a setting where he could see,” Meyers said.
The offense, Meyers added, did not involve “any type of touching or anything that we would consider an assault, other than, you know, video and technology, invasion of their privacy,” for which his client paid a heavy price by serving 10 years in prison.
Cases filed in Samoa and Hawaii
The case that Meyers is referring to was filed following an investigation by the Hawaii Police Department that began on April 2, 2012, when officers responded to two separate reports of a man using a cell phone to record women in public restrooms, and when confronted by witnesses, the suspect fled from the area on foot.
Less than an hour later, Tuinei was seen recording a juvenile in a different restroom. He was later arrested on multiple charges that he appeared in a Hilo District courtroom to be sentenced on in January of 2013. The judge noted there were “aggravated factors present in the case,” one of which involved the defendant’s criminal history from Samoa, where Tuinei lived prior to relocating to Hawaii.
The defendant was sentenced to serve a total of 10 years in prison and he was released in 2020 after serving seven.
The defendant speaks during sentencing
The defendant said, “Your Honor. I humbled myself, I take responsibility for my actions. I apologize for my mistakes for not following the law correctly.”
Tuinei said he was not aware of the laws in Utah when he applied to work at Lava Heights Academy and said he did not know he was “not allowed to work with the other youth” or with children.
He also said that since his arrest, he has studied the laws as they apply to sex offenders and then cited the ” Adam Walsh Child Protections and Safety Act of 2006,” which he said is what made his failing to register as a sex offender a felony, which he was not aware of. He added that going forward, he would make it his first priority “in any city” to update the offender registry.
When District Judge Jay Winward asked the defendant if he had registered his Facebook account with the registry, Meyers interjected by saying the case the judge was referring to was not part of the sentencing, since the charge associated with the allegation was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
The state’s position
Prosecutor Glen Cella said the state’s position was to ask that Tuinei be given a second chance, and Cella said, “I mean registration requirement’s there for a purpose — to protect the public, so that we can track him.”
“I think we should give him a shot,” the prosecutor added.
The ruling
Winward took a 5-minute recess prior to rendering his ruling, and upon his return, he said the following:
“Mr. Tuinei, based on your conviction on a third-degree felony I sentence you to an indeterminate term in Utah State Prison not to exceed five years,” which was the maximum sentence allowed under Utah law for the third-degree felony charge.
Winward then ordered that the defendant’s sentence begin “forthwith,” and an order remanding Tuinei to the custody of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to be transported to Utah State Prison “where the defendant will be confined” was signed at the end of the hearing.
The defendant left the Purgatory Correctional Facility eight days later to be transported to the prison.
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