A 30-year-old Puna man was convicted Thursday of three armed carjackings that took place in March 2017.
After a 2 1/2-week-long trial, it took a jury about six hours to find Mason David Beck guilty of kidnapping, three counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of unauthorized control of a stolen vehicle.
Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura ordered Beck to appear for sentencing at 8 a.m. May 23. Beck could face up to 90 years imprisonment if sentenced to maximum consecutive terms on all charges. The most serious charges, kidnapping and first-degree robbery, each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years per count.
Robert Curtis, Beck’s court-appointed attorney, made an oral motion to put aside the guilty verdicts. Nakamura told Curtis to submit a written motion.
Curtis, who argued to the jury that no fingerprints nor DNA placed Beck in any of the vehicles and all three victims gave differing descriptions of the carjacker, said afterward he thought there was “basically insufficient evidence presented at trial for the verdicts that the jury reached.”
Deputy Prosecutor Evans Smith, who prosecuted the case, told the jury during Wednesday’s closing arguments that all three victims identified Beck as the carjacker from a photographic lineup.
Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth said afterward that the jury “made the right call and did their job.”
“I’m proud of my team for the work that they’ve done,” Roth said.
Beck stole or attempted to steal the vehicles of three men who picked him up hitchhiking in Puna.
In the first incident, Beck threatened the driver with a carpenter’s nail gun. In the other two cases, the weapon was a knife.
The drivers in the first two incidents, a 37-year-old man from Germany and a 66-year-old Big Island resident, got out of their cars as ordered, and Beck drove away in their vehicles.
In the third case, the victim, a 25-year-old California man, told police he stopped the car when he reached a populated area and honked the horn, causing the would-be carjacker to exit the car and flee.
No one was physically injured in any of the carjackings.
Smith thanked the jury for its service afterward and the people of Hawaii “for putting their faith in us to do our job.”
“I believe in the system. I believe that people can exercise reason and common sense,” he said.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.