“The victim was manipulated by you and believed what you were telling him.”
Supporters of the victim yelled out as the defendant was led away to begin serving the sentence.
“Enjoy it!” one of them said.
“Thank you, Jehovah,” said another.
Fualalo first came onto law enforcement’s radar in 2021 after his victim disclosed the offending to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.
The victim had been an underage teenager when he was placed in Fualalo’s custody roughly 15 years earlier after unlawfully taking a car, according to court documents.
“At the time [the teen] had no family support,” according to the agreed summary of facts for Fualalo’s offending.
“[He] was ... small in stature and age and .. had no choice but to stay with Mr Fualalo and other boys of a similar background...
“Over a period of years, [he] came to look up to and trust Mr Fualalo. He felt safe with Mr Fualalo and placed significant trust in him.”
Confronting Fualalo in court last week, the now-adult victim’s voice cracked with emotion.
He said he had been betrayed and scarred for life.
“I’ve lost hope in the system,” he said. “He’s what the Bible describes [as] ... a false prophet.
“I’m standing here as a survivor in the name of Jehovah.”
Looking back at his lengthy stay with Fualalo, the victim later realised the grooming had started early on.
Sessions in which he “mentored” the child on how to be a man took on bizarre tones when the defendant’s wife and the other children weren’t around.
They would sometimes involve full-body, clothed massages in Fualalo’s bedroom.
The teen was taught that massaging the defendant, then in his mid-30s, was a “privilege”.
“Mr Fualalo led [the victim] and other boys in the home to believe that they were part of a cult or sect, and that Mr Fualalo was training them to be real men,” court documents state.
“He would teach them about manhood and physically train them. The boys believed, through what [he] told them, that they were part of ‘God’s army’.”
Over time, Fualalo began subtly introducing the subject of sex into conversations with the victim in an attempt to flirt with him, according to authorities.
“Mr Fualalo asked [the teen] if he wanted to be part of his ‘gay army’,” court documents state.
“He told [the victim] that men who fall for women are weak. Joining the gay army would demonstrate being strong and being a man.
“Mr Fualalo further promised [the victim] that he and his family would be saved on Judgment Day, and that [the teen] would gain special powers by extracting Mr Fualalo’s ‘fluid’ (semen), because Mr Fualalo was a man of God.”
‘Angry and disgusted’
Police said the teen was “vulnerable to the teachings”, having had no prior sexual education through school or sexual experiences of his own.
“These false ideas, instilled in him by Mr Fualalo, made it possible for the offences which subsequently occurred, to occur,” the summary of facts states.
The teen reluctantly agreed to sex acts on two occasions, obedient because he believed in Fualalo’s teachings.
On neither occasion did Fualalo use physical force or threaten violence, but his coercive tactics and violation of trust were laid bare in explicit court documents.
During the second incident, the defendant promised the teen his submission would save his estranged family.
With years of hindsight, the now adult victim “feels angry and disgusted about this aspect of his past”, court documents state.
Fualalo was charged in 2022 with three counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection “through false pretences”, which carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment.
“You said [in a pre-sentence report] when the police showed up to arrest you, in some ways it was a relief for you, because you’d been living with your actions for a long time,” Judge Jelas noted.
But Fualalo maintained his innocence until February, when he pleaded guilty three days before his scheduled trial.
Defence lawyer Adam Couchman noted his client’s remorse and had sought that last week’s sentencing be postponed so that his client could continue engaging in sessions with a psychologist.
He expressed doubt his client could get the same quality of rehabilitative treatment in prison. But the judge declined the request, noting the need for closure for the victim.
Crown prosecutor Pearl Philpott argued that, despite any expressions of remorse, Fualalo’s breach of trust had been significant and should be reflected in the sentence.
“The psychological harm caused by this offending has been enduring,” she said.
“It’s had a big impact on his life.”
But the starting points each side suggested for Fualolo’s sentence were not too different: Seven years for the defence and seven to nine years for the Crown.
The judge settled on eight years before factoring in discounts for his guilty plea, his rehabilitative efforts and his previous good character.
In determining the final sentence, Judge Jelas noted: “It’s somewhat surprising you were approved as a caregiver, given you had no qualifications”.
The fact he was in a caregiver role appointed by the state made the breach of trust even more egregious, she said, referring again to the “manipulation through your supposed teachings”.
But she also noted that he had been assessed as at a low risk of re-offending.
There is “no evidence of ongoing offending before these acts, and nothing since”, she said.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
