introducing:
FONUA KIMOANA'S STORY
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Fonua Kimoana was born in Utah May 4, 1979. He is the third of ten children born to Koli & Ilisapesi Kimoana. He was raised in Glendale, Utah. He has one older brother, one older sister, six younger sisters, and a baby brother. Koli was born in Tonga. He became a professional boxer and traveled the world fighting. Ilisapesi was also born in Tonga. The two met in Hawaii and moved to Utah in the 1978. Unable to speak, read, or write English, Fonua’s parents were forced to work multiple jobs to support their growing family. The Kimoanas were active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In spite of their deeply held religious beliefs, Koli ran the household with an iron fist which pushed Fonua to find his place on the streets with friends outside of the home.
When Fonua was about twelve years old, the group of young men that he affiliated with through his local church congregation decided to form the “Baby Regulator” gang, patterned after the older generations of their families. What started as innocent fun that could be categorized as “Boys will be boys” turned far more dangerous the older, bigger, and stronger they all got. Fonua was only in sixth grade when he smoked his first cigarette. By the time he was in seventh grade he had started smoking weed, drinking alcohol, and became sexually promiscuous. The bigger and stronger he became, he developed a reputation for being capable of serious violence. In spite of his life as a founding member (aka “Day One”) of the Baby Regulator gang, Fonua was a compassionate brother to his siblings. Those who knew him, even rival gang members, revered him as someone with a good heart. |
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Eventually his life of addiction and gang involvement led where it almost always does: prison. Fonua went through several periods of incarceration from jail, to state prison, to federal prison, and back again. During his time as an active gang member he met Elisha Paiz. They got pregnant with their first child, a daughter they named after his mother. They got pregnant again with another daughter, whom they named Kulaea. The girls were only three and one year old when their little family’s world was turned upside down. October 2008 found Fonua wanted as a person of interest in the kidnapping and murder of Jay Wolfinger. The problem was: Fonua was innocent. Not only had Fonua not committed the murder, he had tried to stop the person who did only to be threatened himself. At his mother’s request, Fonua turned himself in to clear his name. Coming from a very large family with immigrant parents who had no choice but to work menial jobs, Fonua’s family absolutely did not have money to hire a private attorney. Fonua was appointed a state defender. When Fonua informed his attorney that he wanted to go to trial because he absolutely did not commit this crime, he was told that he would not be going to trial. He would be accepting a plea deal. Fonua asked the judge in his case to please grant him a new defender since the one assigned to him wouldn’t defend him. He was granted a second state-appointed defender who told him the same thing the first attorney had: he wasn’t going to trial. He was going to take a plea deal. Period. With no money for a private attorney and a defender that wouldn’t defend him, Fonua was forced to accept a plea deal for murder and aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to fifteen years to life.
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That was a turning point for Fonua. Immediately he recognized that he had just lost his freedom due to his addictions, gang involvement, and doing for others when he should have been home taking care of his family. He decided right then and there that he would be making some serious changes in his life. He started trying to rub off the gang tattoo on his hand - a physical sign of the change that was taking place in his heart. As soon as it was an option to do so, Fonua formally denounced his place in the Baby Regulator gang and cut all ties with gang activity of any kind, including gang meetings and hand shakes. Fonua was focused on one thing only: getting home to his daughters. He was ready and willing to disappoint anyone and everyone before he would ever disappoint his girls again. Fonua tried several things to prove his innocence and undo the “life top” sentence that now hung on his neck, but to no avail. Still, he continued to put in the good work of learning how to improve himself in every way possible in order to ensure that if he was ever granted his freedom, he would never return to his old habits, lifestyle, addictions, or mentality again. He knew that if he did that, he would never return to prison again either.
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