10 years for Galas

LIHUE — Darren Galas, 46, was sentenced Wednesday by Fifth Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe to 10 years in prison on an assault one charge, a class B felony, related to the 2006 strangulation death of his estranged wife, Sandra Galas.

The Eleele man had been charged with murder in the second degree, but pleaded no contest to the lesser charge in January.

About 100 people attended the emotional sentencing, marked by tears, with some viewing the proceedings in an overflow courtroom.

“I truly, truly hope that the families will have some amount of closure and will focus on the positive memories of Sandra Mendonca Galas, as well as the future of the welfare of the minor children,” Watanabe said as she rendered the sentence.

Reading from emails sent to her divorce attorney between 2005 and up to January 2006, Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar described a woman who was living in fear of her husband Darren Galas.

The emails described him as often losing his temper and following her at work. She feared that no matter what, Darren Galas would always be harassing her. In the email, Sandra Galas said didn’t feel safe because she was never sure when he would go off again.

“Your honor, that’s how domestic violence works — power and control,” Kollar said.

In another email, written in January 2006, the same month Sandra Galas was killed, she wrote that he had shaken her and yelled at her while she was in the hospital hooked up to an IV.

“This is what she was living under, your honor. He could present really well, in the courtroom, in church. D.V. (domestic violence) is something that’s behind the scenes, but still there’s a stigma of talking about it in public. People hide it,” Kollar said.

The couple married in 1999 and separated in 2005. Sandra Galas filed for divorce in August 2005. Darren Galas has since remarried.

Throughout the years, the many delays in trying the case brought pain to not only the Mendonca family but the entire community of Kauai, Kollar said.

“The day of reckoning is finally at hand for this defendant,” he said.

In a statement to the court, Darren Galas thanked the people who supported him, his family and the Mendoncas.

“I do love Sandy and her boys,” he said. “We were separated but at times we were still intimate. She was a loving mother. Austin and Braden lost someone that can never be replaced.”

Once released from prison, Darren Galas will have to pay $9,415.99 in restitution and $4,000 in funeral costs for Sandra Galas.

Because of the publicity surrounding this case, Defense Attorney Michael Green told the court the best result he could hope for if the case had gone to trial would have been a hung jury.

“The same picture is on the front page of your paper and it looks like, you know, he’s already in prison. It was climbing a mountain to try to win this case if it went to trial,” he said.

Summarizing the events leading up to the sentencing, Green told the court the couple had been separated, sharing custody of their children and at times continued an intimate relationship.

Greens said his client was indicted on the eve of a general election. He said the case dragged on for years until Darren Galas, a man who had never been convicted of anything, was offered the plea of no contest to an assault charge.

“In the years he was out, he works everyday, he raises Sandy’s children, his children, they’re here today in support of him and the memory of their mother. That’s how we get here today,” Green said.

Respected people throughout the community wrote letters on behalf of Darren Galas, Green said, including local pastors, doctors and the couple’s two sons.

Green said despite the devastation of what the sons were facing, throughout their lives their dad had been a role model. He was a man committed to his family and was someone who had always shown them unconditional love, Green said.

When he thought about the case, Green said he wanted there to be closure, but there were many factors that went into the investigation that the police could never come to the conclusion about who was responsible for the death.

Finding out about his daughter’s death over the phone, Larry Mendonca told the court he felt sick to his stomach, like it was a kick in the gut — horror, pain and shock.

“As a parent, you never want to see your kids hurt. But there I was listening in a matter of minutes that my daughter had been found dead under suspicious circumstances,” Larry Mendonca said.

Telling his wife of their daughter’s death was one of the most difficult things Larry Mendonca said he has ever had to do.

“How do you tell a woman that the baby she’d once nursed had been found dead, that the infant who had clung to her bosom, fallen asleep in her arms, played on her legs, skipped off to school, clutching the lunch she had made for her, was now dead,” he told the court.

That day, he said, his family was given a life sentence full of pain, sorrow, agony and frustration, “a life sentence with no parole. A life sentence, without Sandy.”

For Sandra’s big brother, Lawrence Mendonca Jr., one of the most difficult realizations about his sister’s death is realizing that the many good memories he has of her are smudged with sadness. But that’s not the most difficult thing he’s had to deal with in his sister’s death.

“One of the most painful things that I must deal with is wondering just how much my sister suffered the day she was killed,” he said. “As much as I try to avoid thinking about it, the big brother in me won’t let me off the hook.”

In addition to her father and brother, Sandra Galas’ uncle Dennis Cabral also read a victim’s impact statement, asking for a just sentence in the case.

“It’s not vengeance, it’s not revenge, it’s balancing the scales of justice,” he said.

On Jan. 25, 2006, Sandra Galas, 27, was found strangled to death in her car at her Eleele home. The case remained open until a grand jury returned an indictment in October 2012.

In an interview with The Garden Island newspaper after the sentencing, Larry Mendonca said he was satisfied and grateful that the graveyard promise he made to his daughter to seek justice for her had been fulfilled, though he’s not sure how it will help his family move on.

“The pain is still there. We lost a dear person, so whatever happened it doesn’t bring it back, it doesn’t make it OK. But we’ll do whatever we can to move on,” he said.

Though he said a lot of the public is dissatisfied with the charge of assault one, Larry Mendonca said the plea was an acceptable alternative.

Larry Mendonca said he hopes his grandsons will eventually start talking to them.

“We hold a special place in our hearts for them. They’re the only ones right now who have suffered a big loss,” he said.

The Galas family declined to comment.

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Bethany Freudenthal, Courts, Crime and County reporter, 652-7891 bfreudenthal@thegardenisland.com