Former guard admits to mailing illegal aerial fireworks to Hawaii jail in 2022
HONOLULU (AP) — A former guard had illegal aerial fireworks mailed to Hawaii’s largest jail where he worked, the state attorney general said Wednesday.
Gilchrist Fernandez, a former corrections officer at Oahu Community Correctional Center in Honolulu, pleaded guilty to importation of fireworks and attempted possession of fireworks, state Attorney General Anne Lopez said.
In 2022, Fernandez had nearly 95 pounds (43 kilograms) of aerial fireworks mailed to “the very correctional facility that he had a duty to secure,” Lopez said.
The case against Fernandez isn’t linked to a recent fireworks blast at a Honolulu home that killed five people, including a 3-year-old boy.
But Fernandez’s guilty plea comes in the wake of the New Year’s blast, which has set off fresh calls for a crackdown on illegal fireworks that have become increasingly more common in Hawaii. Contraband explosives rock neighborhoods year-round, but grow in frequency around the year-end holidays and Lunar New Year, which was celebrated on Wednesday this year.
Court documents don’t say why he mailed the fireworks to the jail and defense attorney Myles Breiner declined to comment.
Investigators traced the purchase to a fireworks vendor in Nevada, Lopez said.
Fernandez will be ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and faces up to three months imprisonment at his sentencing scheduled for June, officials said.
The U.S. Postal Service and Honolulu police noted that mailing explosives is illegal and dangerous.
“More important than risking his career, this individual risked the safety of everyone who unknowingly came into contact with the highly flammable parcels,” Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan said.