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Peter Rasmussen was fatally shot while trying to shoo off a gang member targeting his grandson, prosecutors say.
Ethan Jessop, Daziea Huia, and Lasalosi Vaitohi are on trial for murder.
The Crown alleges the trio planned a deadly ambush; defence says it was manslaughter at worst.
A 75-year-old South Auckland rugby league stalwart who was fatally gunned down on the doorstep of his home three-and-a-half years ago had been in the process of trying to shoo off a Crips 23 gang member who was there to target his grandson, jurors were toldtoday as the trial began for a trio accused of murder.
Peter Rasmussen bled to death in the kitchen of his Ōtāhuhu home on a Sunday evening in August 2021, before he could reach his landline phone to call for help.
“What had he done to deserve this?” Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes said during his opening address today. “I suggest absolutely nothing.”
Authorities allege Ethan Jessop, 24, shot Rasmussen in the leg with a recently acquired shotgun he nicknamed “Big Bad Beth”, while co-defendant Daziea Leslie Huia, 21, had arranged for a car to be used in the ambush and had participated in other planning. Both men sat in the High Court at Auckland dock today as the trial got under way following several days of delays that saw the selection of two different jury panels.
Gang leader Lasalosi Vaitohi, 32, is accused of having ordered and co-ordinated the ambush despite having been in prison at the time. He appeared at trial via an audio-visual feed today but left part-way through jury selection, after having entered a not guilty plea.
It was his right to do so, Justice David Johnstone told jurors in a brief explanation, adding that the sunglasses Vaitohi wore when he was on screen - an unusual sight given common courtroom dress code - were permitted by the court due to an eye condition.
Armed police guard the scene of the fatal shooting of Peter Rasmussen at 240 Princes Street East, Otahuhu in August 2021. Lasalosi Vaitohi, Ethan Jessop and Daziea Leslie Huia (insets) are standing trial for murder.
Composite photo / NZME
Prosecutors said Vaitohi has been so incensed by the robbery of a drug house on his turf that he immediately set about orchestrating violent retribution in the days leading up to Rasmussen’s death.
“It gives us a chance to test out our soldiers,” he was recorded saying on a phone at Auckland South Correction Facility. “Test out our soldiers at the same time as teaching the world a lesson.”
The original target, Kayes said, was Zharn Rasmussen, a Killer Beez member known on the street as “Obey” who was living at the same house as his grandfather while on electronically monitored community detention. He and girlfriend, Irene Ting, had robbed the nearby Crips drug house a week earlier, prosecutors said.
The younger Rasmussen should have also been home on the day of the shooting, since Auckland had just gone into strict lockdown due to the emergence of the Covid-19 Delta variant. Instead, prosecutors said, his grandfather was home alone and “caught in the crossfire of a gang dispute that he had no part in”.
Kayes suggested the group’s primary goal was to shoot the younger Rasmussen, but if he wasn’t found there it was agreed to shoot at the home and anyone inside. Gambling with people’s lives in such a way constitutes murder even if the initial target wasn’t hurt, he said.
“Mr Vaitohi had a plan - one that would send out a message that people shouldn’t be coming to his hood,” Kayes said.
“When you take a shotgun to someone’s house, intending to shoot the house or the occupants, the very real risk of death is obvious ... All three of them knew that their plan could well result in someone dying, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Kayes promised jurors they would hear many prison call recordings over the course of the trial, which is expected to last four more weeks.
Peter Rasmussen, 75, was a stalwart of the rugby league community. He spent six decades at the Ōtāhuhu Rovers Rugby League Football Club, pictured.
“Get the boys to pay his little house a visit tomorrow,” Vaitohi was recorded saying in one conversation with Amit Singh, who ran the drug house that had been robbed. The court has dealt with Singh separately, jurors were told.
Singh allegedly warned Vaitohi on the call: “Yeah, but, like, the grandparents live over there.”
“I don’t care,” Vaitohi responded on the call. “I don’t give a f***.”
In addition to murder, Vaitohi is accused of participating in a conspiracy to injure Ting, who died of complications due to asthma before the alleged plan could be carried out.
“Tell her when we catch her we’re going to cut her hair baldy, bro ... and tattoo a big f***ing c*** on her face, bro,” Vaitohi was recorded saying on another call. “To be honest, cuz, she’s the first person I’m going to smash, bro, straight up.”
The recorded conversations refer repeatedly to “ta’ahine”, which is Tongan for “girl” but - according to prosecutors - also a poorly disguised code for guns. Vaitohi allegedly said he would arrange to get ta’ahine so they could “thing up” the younger Rasmussen or the house.
On the eve of the shooting, Jessop was recorded having a discussion with Vaitohi.
“Everything’s all sorted for tomorrow, and then I’m going to go, I’m under the radar for four days,” Jessop said.
“Just kick back tonight, cuz, cos you’re working tomorrow,” Vaitohi responded.
Police at Peter Rasmussen's home in August 2021 after he was fatally shot. Photo / Michael Craig
During brief opening statements of their own, lawyers for Vaitohi and Jessup didn’t dispute that it was their clients on the calls referred to by prosecutors. But what they were discussing was not an intent to murder, the lawyers insisted, emphasising that at most their clients committed manslaughter.
“That most serious of charges is a bridge too far in these circumstances,” said Ian Brookie, who represents Vaitohi.
He asked jurors to be wary of interpreting phone calls in which they had no first-hand knowledge of the context. The Crown can’t prove that the elder Rasmussen’s death could have been known by Vaithohi to have been a probable consequence of what he was talking about on the phone.
It was a sentiment repeated by lawyers Emma Priest, who represents Jessup, and Julie-Anne Kincaide, KC, who represents Huia.
“This case is about the senseless death of an elderly man but it is not murder,” Priest said, adding that Jessup accepted he had a part to play in what was admittedly “not a good plan” and engaged in “confronting talk”.
She noted that Peter Rasmussen died from a shotgun wound below the knee - an injury, she said, “that is highly unlikely to result in death”.
“The facts can’t establish a murderous intent beyond a reasonable doubt,” she added. “It is tragic that Mr Rasmussen snr died. That is without question.
“But not all deaths are murder, and this is one of those cases.”
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.
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