WAILUKU – A Pukalani man was convicted of firearms, drug and threatening charges after he was seen pointing a gun at another man, in what a deputy prosecutor described as a grudge that exploded into a fight outside a Makawao bar four years ago.
In 2nd Circuit Court jury verdicts announced Wednesday afternoon, Gregory Sado, 24, was found guilty as charged of keeping a revolver and ammunition in an improper place, first-degree terroristic threatening, third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug and possessing drug paraphernalia.
“This case is about guns, drugs and a grudge that wouldn’t end,” Deputy Prosecutor Carson Tani said in closing arguments to jurors Wednesday morning. “It’s about a .38-caliber revolver, cocaine and this grudge between Jayson Rego Jr. and the defendant. And it was a one-sided grudge.”
But defense attorney David Sereno told jurors that witnesses lied to target Sado and protect Rego, the son of a police lieutenant, after a Smith & Wesson 36 .38-caliber revolver was found at the scene of the fight.
“Once the gun was found, every police officer knew it belonged to one of two people – Jayson Rego Jr. or Greg Sado,” Sereno said.
“My client’s a nobody,” Sereno said, while Rego is “the namesake of a police officer.”
Sado was angry at Rego after Sado’s girlfriend at the time spoke to Rego at Casanovas bar in Makawao one night in May 2010, Rego testified. The exchange between Rego and the woman lasted less than a minute.
Two months later, 27-year-old Rego, his younger brother Jordan and three friends went to Casanovas on a Wednesday night when Sado was there with several friends. Witnesses said Sado was “glaring” at Rego’s group.
As he had done during the earlier encounter at the bar, Rego said, he apologized and tried to shake Sado’s hand, but Sado refused.
“Obviously, the grudge is not over,” Tani said. “It’s boiling. It’s getting ready to explode. The grudge basically explodes into a fight.”
Shortly after 1:30 p.m. July 15, 2010, when the bar was closing, Rego, his brother and friends were walking down Baldwin Avenue to their cars when Sado confronted Rego near Komoda Bakery and challenged him to a fight.
“I told him, ‘If that’s what you want to do, we can fight,’ ” Rego testified.
He said he took his T-shirt off so Sado couldn’t grab it. Sado was “jumping around and taunting me,” Rego said, when one of Sado’s friends “shoves me from the side.”
Rego’s brother Jordan grabbed Sado’s friend and they fought near the Sherri Reeve Gallery on the other side of the street. “My attention was directed toward them,” Jayson Rego Jr. said. “When I looked back, I had a gun pointed in my face.”
He said Sado was holding the silver-colored chrome gun that looked like a revolver “a few inches” from Rego’s face.
“He said, ‘What now, b—-? You f—-ing pussy,’ ” Rego said. “I was scared for my life. There’s not much you can do in that situation.”
Rego said he put his hands up and moved backward. “I said, ‘If you’re going to use it, just use it,’ ” Rego said.
He said he glanced across the street and saw his brother on the ground with someone on top of him. “Although I was scared, I was more scared for him,” Rego said. “I ran to try and grab him.”
Rego said he was leaning over trying to help his brother. “That’s when Greg Sado punches me.”
He said he grabbed Sado by his T-shirt and the two fell into a Sherri Reeve Gallery window, breaking it. Then, Sado fell into a round planter in front of the store, Rego said.
Officer Travis Abarra, who was off duty that night, said he saw the fight as he was leaving Casanovas. After hearing yelling about a gun, Abarra said he got his flashlight and looked for the weapon, seeing the gun in the round planter.
Police recovered the weapon.
Officer Jared Dudoit, who detained Sado at the scene, found a .38-caliber, hollow-point bullet near the officer’s patrol car as he was placing a handcuffed Sado in the back seat of the car, Tani said. Dudoit then left to talk to witnesses before returning to his patrol car and finding another four .38-caliber hollow-point bullets in the door handle area of the back seat, he said.
During a pat-down search as part of Sado’s arrest, police found in his pocket a prescription bottle containing five plastic packets with 3.033 grams of cocaine, Tani said.
Sado didn’t testify during his trial.
But Sereno cited inconsistencies between testimony and reports by police officers who took statements from Rego, his brother and friends. Neither Rego nor his three friends who testified that they saw Sado pointing a gun at Rego alerted others about the weapon, Sereno said.
“No one screamed ‘gun,’ ” Sereno said. “There was no gun.”
He said police swabbed the gun and bullets for touch DNA testing, but the testing wasn’t done.
“The lack of evidence is overwhelming,” Sereno said in his closing argument. “Science would have solved this. They chose not to.”
Sado, who has been free after posting $25,000 bail, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 15.
Judge Rhonda Loo presided over the trial, which began with jury selection July 21.
“We respect the jury’s verdict. Obviously, my client and myself and his family are very disappointed,” Sereno said. “He intends to appeal. Most of the issues are going to be issues surrounding the pretrial delay because the case had been dismissed three times because of issues with the way the prosecutor’s office had brought the case.”
Retired police Lt. Jayson Rego Sr., who sat through most of the trial, said he was more emotionally affected by the case than the hundreds he had been part of investigating during his 26-year police career.
“I’m glad my son wasn’t shot that night,” Rego said. “My two sons weren’t hurt other than getting punches and bruises; that was the biggest thing out of everything.”
He said listening to what was said in court was painful at times.
“Not only was the defendant denying that he did what he did, he was dragging my name as a police officer, as a father and family man through the dirt,” Rego said. “He made implications that I had something to do with interfering with the investigation and the reports – and that’s all false. I had no idea that was the kind of defense they were going to do.
“I’m glad that the truth came out and that the jury saw through the smokescreen that the defendant had put up. The jury was able to see the facts of the case.
“What the verdict did was vindicate me, my family and the Police Department.”
Rego thanked jurors, as well as Tani, Deputy Prosecutor Jeffery Temas and police officers involved in the investigation.
* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.
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