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Home My WebLink AboutPL-SPP-2022-000016 A. Kukuk Testimony 01.02.23 From: Ashtar Kukuk To: WPCtestimony Subject: Hawaii Planning Commission Date: Monday,January 2,2023 6:54:16 PM Attachments: Ashley(1).docx Please see my attached statement pertaining to the case of Robert Silber's special permit case. Mahalo, Ashley Kukuk Date: January 2, 2023 To: Hawai'i County Planning Department and Windward Planning Commission From: Ashley Kuku re: Special Permit Application PL-SPP-2022-000016 Re: Written Testimony for January 6th Planning Commission Meeting I am extremely opposed to this Special Permit application. I filed a police report in Maui in December 2019 with Detective Galario-Guzman with case number 19-051488. The following is my statement that was iincluded in the police report. "In January 2015 1 agreed to spend time with Robert Silber on the island of Maui where I was then living. Robert Silber is a well-known community leader and neo-Tantirc spiritual teacher on the Big Island of Hawaii. There he runs a community, owns land and has a private "healing" practice. I had some hesitation about spending time with him while he was visiting Maui, however I wanted to honor my commitment. I picked him up and I drove to Little Beach in Makena that afternoon. After an hour or so of being there I began to feel out-of-my-body and very uncomfortable. Then my memory goes missing and I remember him kissing me on the beach. I don't remember the start of the kiss, agreeing to it or it being consensual. I remember seeing the sun setting and then realized a lot of time had passed. I don't remember walking off the beach and to the cliff, I just remember kind of coming-to and wandering why we are sitting down in high grasses and off of the path back to Big Beach. My stomach feels sick even thinking about it. I don't remember the drive home although I believe I drove? When we arrived at Robert's AirB&B in Haiku I wanted to leave but he suggested I come in and he would give me a professional Lomi Lomi massage. As if under the influence of a drug or spell, I agreed and stayed for the massage. Of course I regret this now. And I cannot say for sure whether he drugged me or not but I was definitely not in my right state of mind. After about an hour or less at his AirB&B, time is hard to remember, he turned the lights off and it was pitch black. I wanted to scream and ask for the lights to be turned on but I couldn't. I couldn't speak. The next thing I knew he was inside of me. No foreplay, no asking, no consent and I froze. It ended quickly and I felt disgusted afterwards. It wasn't violent and yes it was so incredibly violent. I passed out and didn't wake again until the next morning. I found Robert outside and told him how wrong I felt what happened was. He gaslighted me, blaming me and before he could say another word to wrong me and defend himself, I left. I cannot remember the exact date although it was close to the first week of January. The exact location of the sexual assault is unknown to me but I do know that it occurred somewhere in Haiku. Two years later, March of 2017, 1 was invited to a dance event at Robert's land in Puna, Hawaii. I was visiting the Big Island and was told he was traveling and would not be there. So I went there to see what was being created at the space. I am glad that I did because I saw how his "interns" were mirroring the same chauvinistic, patriarchal, and rape-culture behavior that Robert models. Disrespectful towards women, assuming they could take from them, offering massage and then trying to put their hands inside of the woman's vagina completely unconsenually. It was disgusting. I left in a hurry and on the way out Robert approached me. He wasn't traveling he was there preying on young women who came to his retreat center looking for authentic healing. He did not recognize me when he approached me and hit on me. I looked him in the eye and told him I had no interest in speaking with him. I still had the trauma locked up inside of my body. I barely spoke of either of these experiences for nearly three years after the first incident. It wasn't until I heard stories of Robert drugging other women that I had a cellular memory of what happened to me. It unlocked some of the pain I was carrying and the memories I had hidden away in my subconscious came flooding back. Since then, I have had to go extensive therapy and have found out that this is normal reaction in traumatic events, called Repressed Memories or in more extreme cases Dissociative Amnesia. With these memories returning, I began to go public with what happened to me through Robert Silber's actions. While a Community Accountability group was organizing in Puna Hawaii in early 2017 to bring claims of Robert's violations to his and the community's awareness and to find justice, he continually denied his actions and responsibility. At that time, I felt I did not have the resources, support or courage to continue on and bring my experience to the police. A few months later, in May 2018, my best friend and previous romantic partner Mario Benassi Jr. suddenly drowned in the river at age 23. It has taken me the past year and a half to recover from and caused me to put the Robert Silber case on hold. In August of 2019, 1 became aware of the community initiative being re-activated to hold Robert Silber accountable for his actions. More claims and people with stories of their personal experience with his manipulation, unconsensual sex work, contract breaking, and more are readily available to read on the internet. Today there are at least 400-500 comments on a public thread reporting Robert Silber's violations with testimonies of"shady business practices" to "habitual boundary violations." I am finally stepping forward with my story because I do not want others to be harmed as I was. I do not want him grooming and modeling to more men that this kind of behavior is OK. He has been a strong influencer and that has caused people to defend him in the past. Today more and more people are admitting the truth and coming out of the manipulative cloud he has hung over the heads of many. I am hoping that the legal system of Hawaii can stop this man and bring justice since community efforts have not been enough. Furthermore, he has been kicked out of the International School of Tantric Arts, the Ecstatic Dance Festival will no longer work with him, he has been reported to list servers such as Yoga Trade as "exploiting women sexually and volunteers for work." In my own and many other's experiences, he is an incredibly unsafe person to have on the islands, particularly because he is working in the "healing" and "tantric" sex-field on the islands. I believe he should not be permitted to be around children, young women or working in any sort of healing modality. I also recently learned that he is marketing himself as a "Licensed Massage Therapist" but has not renewed his licensing and is no longer under the board of massage therapists. I also have learned that his land is illegally operating as he does not hold proper permits. I share this to demonstrate his character and his lack of integrity. He is not abiding by the laws of Hawaii and continues to cause extreme harm to people such as myself. While I wish things could have gone differently that fateful day and that I reported him sooner, I am grateful to have the support and ability to do so now. Please help in stopping this man." Ashley Kuku (address protected)