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Jake Smith, who was on the witness stand for six days during the racketeering trial of Michael Miske and whose testimony is considered to have been key to the crime boss’s conviction, has been the target of three assaults in the past four months, reportedly in retaliation for the testimony against his former boss.

The assaults took place while Smith has been detained in the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu awaiting sentencing and were carried out by members of two violent local gangs that Miske is said to have influence over, Murder, Inc. and the WestSide Gang. One attack occurred in the presence of guards who witnessed the entire incident.

Smith’s attorney, Louis Michael Ching, who took over his case in November, disclosed the assaults in a motion filed in court last week seeking to have Smith released from the detention center to house arrest in his parents home until his scheduled sentencing on Oct. 10.

In his motion, Ching said the assaults show there is nowhere safe except the detention center’s special housing unit, where he said other inmates “would taunt and threaten Defendant Smith 24 hours each day as he sat in his cell.”

Further, Ching argued, “the SHU is not a place for him to be held for lack of a better place.”

Ching’s motion to release Smith pending sentencing was denied following a hearing Thursday morning before Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield.

Smith, 31, first became part of Miske’s racketeering organization in 2015, when he was about 22 years old. Having grown up in his father’s martial arts school in Kaneohe and competed as a kickboxer, he started doing “jobs” by assaulting victims Miske wanted targeted, and being paid a fee of $1,000 to $2,000 each time.

He pleaded guilty in November 2020 to being a member of Miske’s racketeering conspiracy and meth trafficking as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, and agreed to testify against his former associates. He has been held at the detention center since his arrest in 2018.

According to Ching’s court filings, Smith had been housed in Module 5a at the FDC, while Miske has been housed in Module 4b along with Bronson Gouveia, a career criminal with convictions going back to 1997. Gouveia’s reported street name, “Murder Inc.,” is now the name attached to a gang he allegedly controls. Gouveia is in the detention center awaiting trial on federal drug trafficking and firearms charges.

According to the motion, Miske and Gouveia communicated frequently in the past year, while Miske also built up a following among members of the WestSide gang. He was able to have discovery materials passed between the modules showing Smith was cooperating as a “rat” with the government.

The first assault took place on April 10, the day before Smith appeared in federal court to testify against Miske.

Inmate Dane Kaneakua was moved from Module 4b, where Miske and Gouveia were housed, to 5a, where Smith was held.

“There Mr. Kaneakua provoked a physical altercation with Defendant Smith for testifying against Mike Miske,” according to Ching’s motion.

As a result, Smith was moved to the SHU.

Smith was then transferred from the SHU to Module 4a on May 30, although the word among inmates was that “Smith would be ‘mobbed’ by Bronson Gouveia and his gang members if he was [to] step into Mod. 4a.”

According to the motion:

Within seconds of reaching Mod. 4a and in presence of the escorting FDC guards, Defendant Smith was assaulted from behind in a vicious manner by inmate Devin Viela, who is purportedly a member of Murder, Inc. Defendant Smith sustained injuries to his head, neck, and wrists. Defendant Smith did not fight back. The FDC guards were present and witnessed to the entire assault. Defendant Smith was placed back in the SHU for further investigation.

Viela has been charged with an armed carjacking of a rental car on Sand Island in March, during which he allegedly “approached the Victim’s driver side window and pointed a gun at his head, demanding that he get out or he would blow his head off.”

Smith was next moved back to Module 5a and, according to the motion, “everything was well for a while.”

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But just two days after the jury’s guilty verdicts were read in court, “Smith was attacked from the back and punched and stomped by two WestSide Gang members without provocation or warning,” his attorney alleges.

Smith suffered multiple wounds on the back of his head, a swollen eye, cracked tooth, as well as an injury to his wrist. He was then transferred first to the medical unit, then to a suicide watch unit, according to court filings.

In an addendum to his legal motion, Ching alleged the assault on Smith was ordered by Edward Caspino, who he described as head of the WestSide gang and an associate or relative of Gouveia.

Caspino had been sitting and socially talking with Defendant Smith when the two Westside Gang soldiers, Bautista and Hoopai viciously attacked and blindsided Defendant Smith from behind with punches and kicks to his head and body. In the meantime, Mr. Caspino, the Leader of the WestSide Gang Members, causally stood up and walked away. It appears that Mr. Caspino was front and center in this vicious assault. He is responsible for giving the order to assault Defendant Smith, and/or at minimum, not stopping the assault by his soldiers.

Edward Caspino was charged last year with being the leader of a group that held large cockfighting “derbies” in Waianae where attendees could bet on the chicken fights, as well as craps and other games of chance, according to the federal indictment.

“This last incident shows that the Gang members of WestSide and Murder, Inc. has a far reaching arm into the federal prison system,” Ching states in an addendum to his motion. “They are not limited to just their gangs, but can employ the cooperation of any other existing violent gang” in the Bureau of Prisons.

A status conference in the case is now scheduled for Aug. 5, and Magistrate Judge Mansfield has ordered a representative of the Federal Detention Center to attend.