Samoan man requests continuation in federal trial

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A Samoan man, charged by federal indictment with one count of making a false statement on a U.S passport application, has requested the federal court in Honolulu to move his trial date to later this year.

Vai Salamasina Taula Fetuli — aka, “Vai Doc Taula” — is accused of willfully and knowingly making false statements on an application for a passport with the purpose to induce and secure for his own use the issuance of a passport, contrary to the federal laws regulating the issuance of passports. 

The trial has been moved to June of this year, but the defense is seeking a continuation of trial.

In the latest court filings in the case, the defense said that to date, Assistant United States Attorney Wayne Myers and defense counsel have been working on coming to a pretrial resolution of this case, but Fetuli “needs additional time to mitigate possible collateral consequences that a guilty plea may have on him.”

Furthermore, defense counsel has conferred with Myers about the basis of this request, and Myers has no objection to a continuance.

Because this additional time is needed to adequately prepare, the time from the date of the continuance to the new trial date would be excluded from computation under the Speedy Trial Act, according to the defense filing, which request continuation of trial to a date after September 2022.

No indication on court records on when the presiding judge would issue a decision on the request.

The federal indictment alleges that the defendant, on Sept. 21, 2020 in Hawaii, had stated in the passport application that his name was “Vai Doc Taula”, along with his birthday —  for which the year is ‘exed’ out in the indictment — and that he was born in Los Angles.

Furthermore, the defendant claims that his parents were each a “U.S. Citizen” which statement he knew was false, the indictment said, but provided no other information on where the defendant or his parents were born.

As previously reported by Samoa News, Fetuli was released on an unsecured bond of $25,000 along with several conditions.