Rodney Joseph of Hawaii: Pali Golf Course Murders and Racketeering Case

Rodney Joseph Jr. is a former illegal gambling enforcer and professional kickboxer from Waianae who is serving life in federal prison for his role in the Pali Golf Course murders in Hawaii. On January 7, 2004, Joseph and co-defendant Ethan Motta shot and killed two men and critically wounded a third in the parking lot of the Pali Golf Course in Kaneohe, part of a violent turf war over control of illegal gambling on Oahu. A federal jury convicted him in 2009 on racketeering and murder counts, and U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway sentenced him to life.

What Happened at the Pali Golf Course

On the afternoon of January 7, 2004, between thirteen and eighteen shots were fired in the Pali Golf Course parking lot on Oahu’s windward side. Lepo Utu Taliese, 44, and Romelius Corpuz Jr., 39, were killed. Taliese’s brother, Tinoimalu Sao, was shot in the face and survived.¹

Prosecutors said Joseph and Motta lured members of a rival gambling faction to a meeting at the course. When the two groups met, Motta shot Taliese four times in the back and fired a silenced .22-caliber handgun into Sao’s head.² A third man with them, Kevin “Pancho” Gonsalves, later admitted shooting Corpuz, telling the court, “Things happened. I ended up shooting Junior Corpuz.”³ Joseph told police he had carried and fired a .380-caliber gun during the shooting. He turned himself in to the Honolulu Police Department that evening.⁴

The Gambling Turf War Behind the Shooting

The killings grew out of a dispute over security for an illegal gambling house on Young Street in Honolulu run by a Chinatown restaurant manager named Kai Ming Wang. Wang had hired one crew to guard the operation. After that crew came under attack from a rival gambling faction, Wang brought in a second crew made up of Motta, Joseph, and Gonsalves. The original guards eventually told Motta his services were no longer needed. Instead of stepping aside, Motta and his associates escalated.¹

FBI informant Jonnaven Monalim, a cousin of both defendants, later testified that Motta told him he was organizing gambling on Oahu and intended to be “bigger than Charlie Stevens,” and that Motta believed it was necessary to “put blood on the table” to send a message to rivals.⁵

Who Rodney Joseph Is

Joseph grew up in Waianae, on Oahu’s west coast. He was a professional kickboxer, and by his mid-thirties he supervised security and doormen at illegal gambling establishments around the island.⁶

His family ties ran deep into Hawaii’s criminal underworld. Joseph’s maternal uncle was Charles “Charlie” Stevens, a drug lord who controlled criminal activity on the Waianae Coast for more than two decades. Stevens’ organization trafficked crystal methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana, and engaged in extortion, kidnapping, and witness tampering. Federal informants described Stevens as “the man” in Waianae: anyone wanting to conduct significant criminal activity in the area needed his approval. A 1990 FBI affidavit alleged that Joseph, then about twenty, helped his uncle retrieve two pounds of crystal methamphetamine from a hotel room where someone had died of an overdose. Joseph was never charged in connection with the Stevens investigations.⁶

Stevens received a twenty-year federal sentence without parole in 1993 and died of cardiac arrest in a Pennsylvania federal prison in 1999. Motta was also described by prosecution witnesses as Stevens’ nephew, and Judge Mollway later said Motta held “a very high position in the criminal underworld hierarchy” and intended to rebuild Stevens’ empire.²

Why the State Case Fell Apart

A state grand jury indicted Joseph, Motta, and Gonsalves on January 13, 2004 on counts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and attempted murder.⁷ The state’s case leaned heavily on a detailed statement Joseph gave police the day after the shooting, and the way police obtained that statement became the hinge of the entire prosecution.

Joseph’s attorney had arranged a “pre-interview” session with detectives before any Miranda warnings were given. During that session, Joseph admitted firing a gun during the shooting and later destroying several firearms with an associate’s help. Only afterward did police read him his rights and record a formal statement. On November 4, 2004, the First Circuit Court suppressed the statement, the recordings, and the evidence derived from them, including recovered ammunition, a vehicle, and witnesses identified through the admissions.⁴

On January 31, 2006, the Hawaii Supreme Court affirmed. Relying independently on the Hawaii Constitution’s privilege against self-incrimination rather than the federal Constitution, the Court held that both the pre-Miranda proffer and the subsequent recorded statement were inadmissible, and that everything that followed was tainted as fruit of the poisonous tree.⁴ The state murder charges were eventually dismissed.

The Federal Racketeering Case

Federal prosecutors picked the case up. On February 15, 2006, a federal grand jury returned an indictment in United States v. Wang et al. (Criminal No. 06-00080) naming eleven defendants connected to the gambling enterprise and the killings.⁸ A Second Superseding Indictment filed on October 12, 2006 charged Joseph and Motta with eight counts, including substantive RICO, RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, and violent crimes in aid of racketeering tied to the murders of Taliese and Corpuz, the attempted murder of Sao, and assault with a dangerous weapon. The indictment alleged the enterprise operated from 1999 to 2004 and used extortion, robbery, and murder to maintain control over illegal gambling on Oahu.⁹

The Rejected Plea Deal

In 2008, Joseph entered a plea agreement that would have capped his sentence at 27½ years, well short of the mandatory life term for federal murder convictions. The government justified the reduction by citing “substantial assistance.” Judge Mollway rejected it. She found the record did not show the defendants had provided “enough cooperation with the government to qualify for anything less than life sentences.”¹⁰ Joseph tried to withdraw his guilty plea after it was rejected and went to trial.⁹

The 2009 Trial

Joseph and Motta were tried together in early 2009. Tino Sao, the surviving victim, took the stand to identify both men as his attackers.¹¹ Prosecutors also presented a dying declaration from Lepo Taliese, who named Joseph and Motta as his assailants while lying on the 18th fairway.

The government’s key cooperator was Monalim, who had been secretly working with the FBI since 2004 after agents raided his home and accused him of drug activity. He testified at trial and had recorded conversations with his cousins that were played for the jury.⁵

On March 20, 2009, the jury convicted both men on all counts. Joseph was found guilty on seven counts: substantive RICO, RICO conspiracy, illegal gambling conspiracy, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, two counts of murder in aid of racketeering, and attempted murder in aid of racketeering.⁹

Sentence and Appeals

On July 9, 2009, Judge Mollway sentenced Joseph to life in prison on each of the two murder counts, with concurrent terms of twenty years on the RICO and assault counts, ten years on the attempted murder count, and five years on the gambling conspiracy count.¹² The Ninth Circuit affirmed his conviction and sentence in a memorandum decision issued on January 10, 2012.¹³

Joseph has continued challenging his conviction from prison. A motion for a new trial argued the government failed to disclose favorable treatment given to Monalim by the state parole board. The court denied it, calling the evidence “merely impeaching” and “cumulative” and citing the “overwhelming evidence” presented at trial.¹⁴ Three petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 were consolidated and denied without a hearing on February 27, 2014; the court declined to issue a certificate of appealability.¹² Joseph filed a notice of appeal in March 2014, which the court accepted after finding that a prison lockdown constituted good cause for the late filing.¹³

The 2025 Killing of the Trial’s Key Witness

More than fifteen years after the trial, the case returned to the news. Jonnaven Monalim, the FBI informant whose testimony helped convict Joseph and Motta, was reported missing after being last seen leaving his Kapolei home on the evening of November 5, 2025. His body was found two days later near the Waipio Soccer Complex, and an autopsy confirmed he had been killed by multiple gunshot wounds.¹⁵

On November 12, 2025, Honolulu police arrested Clarence Luke, 42, on suspicion of second-degree murder and use of a firearm in a separate felony. Bail was set at one million dollars. Investigators said the killing stemmed from a money dispute: Monalim had been running a gambling house and was owed $80,000, and Luke had been involved in debt collection while carrying personal financial debts of his own. Police said there was “no evidence to suggest” Monalim’s murder was connected to his role as a witness in the 2004 case.¹⁵

1
Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Motta Pleads Guilty in Golf Course Killings
2
Honolulu Advertiser. Motta Sentenced to Life in Prison
3
Honolulu Advertiser. Gonsalves Pleads Guilty in Pali Golf Course Killings
4
Hawaii Courts. State v. Joseph, No. 27001
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Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Killings Sent a Message, Informant Says
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Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Pali Golf Course Murder Suspects Linked to Organized Crime
7
Hawaii News Now. Murder Charges Filed in Golf Course Shooting
8
PACER Monitor. USA v. Wang et al
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GovInfo. United States v. Rodney Joseph Jr., Sentencing Order
10
Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Two Men Convicted in Golf Course Deaths
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Honolulu Advertiser. Joseph and Motta Found Guilty
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GovInfo. United States v. Rodney Joseph Jr., Judgment
13
GovInfo. United States v. Rodney Joseph Jr., Order on Post-Conviction Motions
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GovInfo. United States v. Rodney Joseph Jr., Order on Motion for New Trial
15
Hawaii News Now. Police Arrest Suspect in Connection to Murder of Witness in Deadly Gang Shooting Decades Ago