KAILUA-KONA — A Big Island teenager accused of holding a woman against her will and beating and raping her was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Tyron Sigrah, 17, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to counts of first-degree sexual assault, second-degree assault, kidnapping and robbery.
Sigrah, who was 15 at the time, and another teen kidnapped the woman and took turns assaulting her at the Old Kona Airport Park in September 2016, authorities said. The attack stopped after a bystander chased the teens off.
“This was a very, very heinous crime,” the victim told the court. “I thought I was gonna die. They were suffocating me with a towel.”
The victim told the court that the teens cannot be rehabilitated, noting that “they’re not your normal teenage boys.”
“What happened to you should have never happened to anyone,” Judge Robert D.S. Kim told the victim. “As long as I wear this robe, I will make sure it doesn’t.”
Prosecutors dismissed four charges of sexual assault and terroristic threatening in exchange for Sigrah’s guilty plea. Prosecutors also agreed to not give statements to the Hawaii Paroling Authority, which will determine Sigrah’s minimum prison sentence.
Deputy Public Defender Wendy DeWeese requested for Sigrah to receive youthful offender status, which would allow for a prison term of eight years.
“Today, the court is going to send a child to prison,” DeWeese said.
Prosecutors argued against the status, saying Sigrah has made no effort for rehabilitation.
“The victim is going to suffer the sheer savagery of this attack for the rest of her life,” the judge said. “This is not children. This is beyond child’s play.”
How does a 15 year old child do something like this…?!!! How is that even possible…?!! Judge was right, they weren’t children and if left unhindered, would have grown to be absolute monsters. But, why didn’t this case go to trial? Sounds like with the plea deal, these guys got off with a lesser sentence than they would have if a jury was involved…?
We’ve creating a population of sociopaths. When kids are oppressed growing up they can become sociopathic. The illness in our leadership is not isolated. These are just symptoms of a societal disease that elected officials, administration and voters cannot yet understand. They still seem to think crime is an issue solved by incarceration. Putting these kids away is a requirement but they are just the tip of the iceberg.
It takes more than rape, murder, suicide and school shootings to raise awareness for the larger issues being created in our communities. Currently, little to nothing is being done to address sociopaths in our communities.
The fairly new adage of “no one cares” is true for younger folks and difficult for anyone to prove. This multi-generational problem doesn’t start to go away until the systematic social and economic oppression is reversed. Current leadership is not capable of understanding the environments that have been created.
Unfortunately, rehabilitation would do little to reverse sociopathy. Nothing can be done about psychopathy. It is critical to our awareness and understanding that we stop electing or hiring psychopaths in positions of power -at all levels.