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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Probation revoked for sex offender


Advertiser Staff

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Harrison Mew

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A convicted sex offender who used a false name to advertise for female roommates on Craigslist has been sent to prison for five years.

Circuit Judge Steven Alm yesterday revoked the probation of Harrison Mew because he failed to complete mandatory sex offender treatment.

Mew, 57, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the 1980s after his conviction for a series of burglaries in the Kāhala area that led to him being known as the "Kāhala Panty Burglar."

Those crimes began as low-level thefts but increased in seriousness to break-ins, stalkings and disturbing phone calls to female victims, prosecutors said.

After serving a prison and parole term, Mew pleaded guilty in 1999 to two counts of second-degree sexual assault after police discovered a videotape showing Mew and a co-defendant assaulting a 19-year-old woman who was too drunk to stand without help.

That crime occurred in Mew's Pearl City auto air-conditioning repair shop.

In 2007, he was sentenced to a new five-year probation term for failure to fully comply with Hawai'i sex offender registration laws.

Last year, he was sent to jail for 60 days after he was found to be advertising on Craigslist for female roommates at a Kāne'ohe "executive mansion."

After his release, Mew did not report to authorities and recently showed deception when polygraphed "about where he's been sleeping" and about "his financial situation," according to Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Pu'u.