State continues to deny interview with man jailed for allegedly threatening councilman

The state Department of Corrections has continued to deny requests to interview Glen Gruenhagen, a local artist sentenced to a year in jail in May for an ambiguous poster aimed at Kaua’i County Councilman Billy DeCosta. 

The incident resulting in Gruenhagen’s arrest, which was detailed in a story published last month, occurred after he came to the Historic County Building in Līhu’e on Jan. 12 asking to speak with “Billy’s boss.” 

Councilwoman Felicia Cowden, the only council member to speak with Gruenhagen directly, says he told her he wanted to report DeCosta for harassing him with his hunting dogs in Kokeʻe for years. 

Following the conversation, Cowden took Gruenhagen’s handmade poster, which he had asked to go to “Billy’s boss,” and placed it on DeCosta’s desk herself. 

DeCosta later found the poster on his desk on Jan. 16, reported it to police, and Gruenhagen was arrested on first-degree terroristic threatening charges on Jan. 19. Gruenhagen later agreed to a plea deal that sentenced him to one year in jail at the Kauaʻi Community Correctional Center (KCCC), with credit for time served, for the lesser charge of terroristic threatening in the second degree. 

“I feel unbelievably terrible that that man went to jail because I gave his name, his phone number, where his picture was (to police) because I had faith that the system would work,” Cowden had said in an interview in June, stressing that she did not believe Gruenhagen was threatening anyone. 

“I thought Glen would be let go and I thought people would check to see if Billy had been hunting people with his dogs and that they would interview him and he would be spoken to. Because to me, that was the very obvious thing. Nobody went after him. Nobody talked to him.”

While the case was ongoing in April, state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Public Information Officer Rosemarie Bernardo said Gruenhagen could not be interviewed due to ongoing case proceedings.

In June, weeks after Gruenhagen’s sentencing, Bernardo once again said the department had denied the request to interview Gruenhagen. “The Director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation declines to approve your interview/visit request with Mr. Gruenhagen as doing so would disrupt the good governance of the facility,” she said. 

However, she also noted the media may correspond in writing or receive collect calls from inmates, per the department’s media policy. 

To ask to be added to Gruenhagen’s approved correspondence list, Bernardo said a physical letter would need to be mailed to the warden at KCCC. 

Kaua’i Now called Warden Jerry Jona’s extension at KCCC and spoke with him over the phone on July 17. 

Jona said he did not think an interview with Gruenhagen would be a problem, but said a case supervisor would call back to confirm.

On July 18, KCCC Corrections Supervisor Jack Viohl called and said the jail had approved an interview request on their end. But he said that the request would need to go through the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation before an interview can be granted. 

Kauaʻi Now reached back out to Bernardo on July 18, asking for reconsideration of the interview request, considering the warden and corrections supervisor at the jail did not have a problem with it.  

“Re: KCCC, the facility did not approve your request for an interview,” Bernardo wrote in an email response. 

Bernardo continued, “As you are aware, all interview requests by media are to go through the PIO. The Director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stands firm by his previous response concerning your interview request.” 

Bernardo did not reply to a follow-up question sent on July 22, which asked for clarification about how the interview would disrupt the facility. 

Kauaʻi Now plans to mail a letter to the jail letter this week, asking for permission to be added to Gruenhagenʻs approved correspondence list.