By PATRICK GOWER
An armed robbery "franchise" was responsible for an Auckland crime wave that included last year's murders of pizza worker Marcus Doig and bank teller John Vaughan, a court was told yesterday.
The group's members committed 12 armed robberies between December 2001 and May last year, when 18-year-old gunman Ese Falealii shot both the workers in robberies within a week.
The Crown alleges the accused helped Falealii - who pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence - by giving him the rifle, dropping him off and acting as his getaway driver on the murders and other robberies.
William Logan Johannson, 25, of Otara, and Joseph Sam Samoa, 27, of Mangere, are accused of both murders and the attempted murder of John Bell, owner of the Pakuranga pizza parlour where 23-year-old Mr Doig worked.
Pago Savaiinaea, 26, of Otara, is charged with the murder of Mr Vaughan.
All three men face variety of charges related to the series of armed robberies.
A court order bans the publication of their photographs.
The depositions hearing in the Manukau District Court is to decide if there is enough evidence for the men to face a High Court trial.
Crown prosecutor Simon Moore said a fourth man, Kenneth Edward Kitiseni, acted in Falealii's place in three robberies before his arrest in March last year.
"Following Kitisene's enforced retirement from the enterprise, Ese Falealii was recruited and took part in a further nine robberies."
The court heard that Falealii was Savaiinaea's cousin, and that Savaiinaea and Samoa had known each other since their schooldays at De La Salle College in Mangere.
Falealii was the gunman in all but one of the robberies. Various combinations of the other accused either dropped him off or picked him up at pre-arranged points.
Savaiinaea acted as gunman in the other robbery, at the Surgery Bar in Auckland city.
He herded the staff into an office at gunpoint, but was pushed out a door as he escaped with a bag of money that was locked inside behind him.
He fired two shots into the door in anger.
Savaiinaea, a former security guard who worked at the Sydney Olympics, allegedly showed a relative a cut-down rifle that he said was used in robberies. He said his "job" in the group was usually as a getaway driver.
The relative later recognised the rifle as that being held by Falealii in a security camera photograph in the Herald the day after he shot Mr Vaughan at the Mangere Bridge ASB.
The other robberies the group are accused of include TABs in East Tamaki, St Heliers, Te Atatu and Hillsborough, bars and a furniture store.
They allegedly robbed the Manukau Super Strike bowling centre twice within a month.
The hearing was conducted behind tight security, and no bags or anything that could be used as a weapon were allowed into the courtroom. All visitors to the public gallery were scanned with a metal detector by court security guards.
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