Judge sentences Kip Kawamoto to 23 years in prison for brutally beating, sexual assaulting woman in North Portland home

Judge sentences Kip Kawamoto to 23 years in prison for brutally beating, sexual assaulting woman in North Portland home


Published: Friday, April 20, 2012, 5:17 PM Updated: Friday, April 20, 2012, 8:45 PM

By Stuart Tomlinson, The Oregonian The Oregonian


View full sizeStuart Tomlinson/The Oregonian

Kip Kawamoto, left, with his attorney, Russell Barnett during the 30-year-old man's sentencing Friday before Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Bushong. At far right are Kawamoto's parents, Debbie and Ernest Kawamoto.

Despite pleas from his parents, his attorneys and himself, a judge sentenced 30-year-old Kip Kawamoto to 23 years in prison Friday for brutally beating, sexually assaulting and kidnapping a woman in his North Portland home a year ago.

Kawamoto, who rejected a plea offer of 16 years in prison, was convicted in a bench trial of four Measure 11 crimes last November that could have landed him in prison for more than 30 years.

The victim, who has since moved to another state, listened in on speaker phone to the sentencing of Kawamoto before Judge Stephen Bushong in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Although the telephone connection was lost at least twice, when it was reestablished, the woman declined to make a statement.

Instead, Kawamoto’s parent, Dr. Ernest and Debbie Kawamoto described their son as a bright student who grew up in the Seattle area and liked baseball and bowling, and seemed to be on a path to success when he moved to Hawaii to attend college.

Later, he was admitted to the University of Washington, but later dropped out, turning to drugs and alcohol, they said, to assuage the pain caused by the deaths of several close family members.

View full sizeStuart Tomlinson/The Oregonian
Kip Kawamoto, 30.

“He looked out for others and was the life of the party,’’ his father said. “He was quite social and made friends immediately.”

But for two days in April 2011, prosecutors described a scene of brutality and aberrant behavior in Kawamoto’s house in the 9800 block of North Midway Avenue.

Portland police found the victim screaming in a back bedroom. She told police Kawamoto had "forced her to take drugs" until she blacked out and then he brutally assaulted her.

The woman's eyes were swollen shut with deep bruises to her face, neck and "every exposed limb," according to police reports. She also had cuts on her head, arms and legs. Police searched the home, confiscated two baseball bats from the bedroom and documented blood splatter on the walls around the bed where the woman was discovered.

Det. William Winters, who testified briefly at the hearing, read text messages Kawamoto sent to friends during those two days describing some of the acts he committed on the victim.

“This case could have ended much worse if police had not broken down Kip Kawamoto’s front door,’’ said prosecutor Don Rees. "The officer who found the victim wrapped in a sheet in that room said he had never seen anyone who looked that bad who was still alive."

Kawamoto told the judge he was withdrawing from heroin and high on PCP, cocaine and alcohol when he committed the crimes. lynne

“I’m deeply sorry for what I did,’’ Kawamoto told the judge. “This isolated incident in my life was the exception, not the rule. I will do everything in my power moving forward to rehabilitate myself.”

Bushong sentenced Kawamoto to serve the first degree assault, first degree kidnapping and sodomy conviction sentences consecutively, and the first-degree sodomy and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration sentences to be served concurrently, for a total of 280 months, or 23.3 years.


http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/04/judge_sentences_kip_kawamoto_t.html

http://www.katu.com/news/local/Man-who--148377085.html

http://www.kptv.com/story/17642162/man-sentenced-for-kidnapping-assault-and-se

http://legalnews.findlaw.com/article/0bqidiK7mgcZz



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