Happy Holidays, like all my other previous global letters, this letter will also be dedicated to my brother Shaun, who is in prison for a crime he did not do. Just picture this in your mind… Christopher will be 4 years old this month, for the last 2 years he has been growing up without a father, and is real dependent on the support of the family(s), he is very intelligent and very independent in everything he does and is so eager to learn what is going on. As you can tell with the photos above he watches me on my computer when I do my homework and he feels he should be doing the same thing.

Christopher started school at Headstart at the age of 3 ½ years old. After starting school we noticed that he is very aware of what is happening and he communicates with every thought of what he wants to say. He surprises us everyday.

His weekends is spent visiting his dad either with his mom: if his mom is working he goes with my parents and sometimes with me. Once in a while he gets visits from his cousin and his stepsister. The saddest part of the visits is to hear Christopher say “I love you dad, I miss you Dad, see you next week”.

The 2nd hardest part of this whole ordeal is to be faced with the possibility of “prison movements”(the family goes through this every third month and it is very mentally degrading, as positive as we want to be, to hear your love one say to us if he does not call within the next 2 days I may be on the plane. Out just like that no warning or no last goodbyes what so ever. My parents and Shaun’s wife are so strong and continue to fight for his freedom.

The prison is in violation of building codes the prison is going through repair, in order to make room, prisoners are shipped out to Arizona and Oklahoma. Time spent in may range from 2 to 4 years until the repairs are completed, the prisoners are then rotated back into the system.

As the year comes to an end, like all the other years we thank you all for your morale support, please continue to spread the word if you desire to about the injustice that occurred, letters through the editor, the Hawaii Paroling Authority attention Mr. Tufono, www.hawaiireporter.com or any other media that can help us spread the injustice: anything can make all the difference, or even on Shaun’s web site: www.shaunrodriguesisinnocent.citymaker.com forward it to all your friends and family.

So what is happening now:

Our attorneys are still actively involved in Shaun’s freedom with Project Innocence and a few more leads that has come up, the problem is everything takes so long to process and investigate.

Project Innocence Hawaii is actively working on Shaun’s case

My father has written several letters to a lot of people that we know some examples are Senator Inouye, Dave Shapiro, The Governor and so forth but as we all know-it matters what subject matter it is for a response unless one is passionately involved to help.

Shaun is still very active in the prison ministry, helping other prisoners who are worse off than himself and remains very positive about things.

Mom, Dad, & Chas are still working very hard my Dad always tells me “make a difference in some ones life and don’t work retail (the hours are 24/7)”

As for yours truly, I hope I am making a difference in someone’s life. I’m still working for Hawaii Behavioral Health, as a case worker taking care and tutoring a autistic child. I have been a volunteer tutor for a second grade student at Enchanted Lake for several years. I also been coaching basket ball for the last several years but this year is the first time I did it year round, Kuhio Park Terrace basketball league, KBA Kailua (this team went 12 wins and 0 losses) and the JNB League, working with kids 16 years and under. This year I was fortunate enough to get offered a head coaching job with Castle High School, coaching the Boys JV Basketball, I chose Castle over Kailua and Kalaheo. As in life the hardest part was to cut players out of 31 that tried out, I had to trim the roaster to 15 kids, this will be a learning and teach year for me, 3 kids have experience and 12 no experience, we hope we can beat Kailua and Kalaheo.

As far as school, I got 1 more year left at Chaminade and hopefully I’ll have my Bachelors Degree in special education and elementary education. I was just fortunate to be on the National Scholastic Honor Society (my dad always says you get what you put in, it’s your choice) these past couple year.

In all the past years of coaching, heavy emphasis is put on education and school with the kids, they have to do a grade check, if their grades are not up to school standards starter or not, some parents got real mad at me, but then they come to realize that all I was trying to do is help these kids succeed in life. Till this day some of my old players continue to call me to let me know how they are doing both in school and in sports, this is so gratifying.

The Kurihara and The Rodrigues families would like to thank you for all your support and prayers. Have a safe and prosperous New Year.