Alleged victim’s story challenged

Police officer is defendant in sexual assault trial

“I knew it wasn’t a dream any more.”

That was part of the dramatic Monday morning testimony of veteran Kaua’i County Police officer Nelson Gabriel’s step-daughter during the first day of Gabriel’s trial on multiple counts of felony sexual assault.

If convicted, Gabriel faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The now-16-year old girl alleges that Gabriel sexually abused her from May 1998 to April 1999, when she was in the seventh and eighth grades.

The girl was removed from the family home in mid-1998 and has since lived in three foster homes.

The alleged victim testified in front of Fifth Circuit Court Judge George Masuoka (Gabriel earlier waived a jury trial) that her step-father fondled and molested her numerous times while she slept. He once fondled her in her mother’s bed when no one else was in the Kalaheo house where they lived, she said.

Fighting back tears during gentle questioning by county deputy prosecutor Bryant Zane, the teenager told a tale of progressively more intense molestation.

But in the afternoon portion of the trial, under intensive cross-examination by Gabriel’s attorney, Michael Green, the teenager’s story seemed to be unraveling by the time Masuoka recessed the proceedings for the day at 4:30.

Green led the unwilling teenager through a parade of lies she admitted telling authority figures in the past, including an accusation she later recanted that her great-grandfather had molested her in church.

“Did you tell other lies to avoid getting in trouble?” Green asked. “Didn’t you lie about the defendant (Gabriel) beating you up” with a wire coat hanger?

After each question, the alleged victim either admitted she had lied or said she couldn’t remember what she had said to teachers, counselors and foster parents.

Green slowly and deliberately led her through multiple instances when she allegedly lied to teachers, to foster-parents and to her mother.

Then Green introduced into evidence a diary the girl kept during the time when she claimed her step-father had sexually abused her. The diary was full of obscenity-laced tirades against both her step-father and her mother.

“‘I hate that man named Nelson who took my mother away from me,'” Green read, after the girl had agreed the diary was hers and in her handwriting.

Green recounted various incidents, including once when Gabriel took his step-daughter to jail for half a day because of accusations she had stolen something.

Green also brought up alleged incidents when Gabriel went through the then pre-teen’s purse, looking for contraband when she returned home from school.

“I can’t have my own privacy. I am not his (Gabriel’s) child. I am happy I am not his child,” she wrote in her diary after one such after-school search.

Green pointed out there was nothing in the diary about her step-father “touching her.”

“It happened,” the girl answered.

Green ended Monday’s cross-examination by reminding the girl of an incident in which she arrived home with her mother and younger half-sister three years ago. A window was broken. “Didn’t you pick up a stick, as if you didn’t know who was in the house?” Green asked.

The girl answered quietly in the affirmative.

“You broke the window breaking into the house (earlier), didn’t you?” Green asked. The teenager admitted she had broken the window but hadn’t told her mother and sister the truth.

By the time court adjourned for the day, the teen had been on the witness stand for more than four hours. The second day of the trial was slated to resume this morning, with the girl back on the witness stand.

Masuoka heard testimony Monday from a nurse and a doctor, both now working on Big Island, who had examined the girl after the accusations of sexual abuse surfaced. The medical personnel said their exams were inconclusive, and they stressed that is often the case when exams are conducted more than 72 hours after a sexual assault takes place.

There were no opening statements by the two attorneys, since there was no jury to hear them. Both attorneys submitted opening statements to Masuoka in writing.

Zane and Green said closing arguments would be handled in the same way.

Masuoka told the attorneys this is the third sexual assault trial he had conducted without a jury. He added that he found one defendant guilty and one not guilty.

Gabriel was removed from active duty after being charged with sexual assault. He’s also at the center of claims that police chief George Freitas interfered with an internal department investigation of complaints against Gabriel. Freitas is now under investigation himself and is on paid leave as a result.

Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252)