Police released this mugshot of Richard Hona in October 2006, seeking the public's help in locating him. He was known to frequent the children's sections of libraries, authorities said at the time. Photo / Supplied
A man who, for years, maintained a dubious reputation in the criminal justice system for his prolific rap sheet of public masturbation arrests has relapsed after stepping away from his decade-long regime of voluntary chemical castration injections.
Richard Renata Hona, 55, asked to be spared yet another prison sentence last week after it was pointed out to an Auckland District Court judge that the injections have since resumed.
Defence lawyer Brett Ravelich argued that the public would be better protected with a community-based sentence, allowing his client to continue the injections.
“If we send him to prison now ... he’s going to be sitting there unmedicated,” the lawyer said, describing the medication as “the right track” and - to his client’s frustration - the only preventative measure that has ever worked.
“When he comes out of prison, he’s going to be on his own again,” he warned.
Police agreed that intensive supervision would be a suitable outcome.
But Judge Hermann Retzlaff said a short term of imprisonment was necessary given Hona’s over 50 previous convictions for similar offending - almost 30 of which resulted in past imprisonment.
“Unfortunately, that is the sentence that has to be imposed for the protection of the community,” the judge said.
Hona, of Auckland, fell back into old habits again in March, when a fellow passenger on an Auckland Transport bus between Onehunga and New Lynn spotted him acting lewdly over an approximately 10-minute period.
Just two weeks later, he exposed himself to another victim at Avondale Library around 3.30pm - a time when there was the potential for children to be arriving after school. The woman left the building without engaging Hona but was deeply affected to the point where she no longer feels safe in the library or the neighbourhood, the court was told.
“She was at the library thinking it was a safe place,” Judge Retzlaff told the defendant. “She was left shocked and frightened so much so she needed to retreat to her car for 30 minutes to collect herself.”
Hona’s history of pubic exposure dates as far back as 1991, with many cases involving masturbating in front of women he did not know while on the bus.
But during sentencing hearings in April and June 2015, the court was told Hona had volunteered just months earlier to start getting injections of Zoladex, a drug commonly used to treat cancer but also a known libido suppressor.
Such drugs, known as chemical castration, have been made mandatory for sex offenders in some overseas jurisdictions, including parts of the United States. In New Zealand, the drugs are available for such purposes but on a voluntary basis.
“There’s been considerable physical changes in him, and a reduction of the urges he has had to live with,” Ravelich, his past and present lawyer, told then-Judge Roy Wade at the April 2015 sentencing. “He no longer fantasises or visualises like he used to.”
Judge Wade called Hona an “incorrigible flasher” but ultimately ordered 18 months’ intensive supervision, agreeing with the defence that the then-experimental drug needed to be given a chance to work.
Hona was arrested again for public masturbation five days after the sentencing, and, in June that year, then-Judge Tony Fitzgerald ordered another non-custodial sentence.
“It’s in your interests and it’s in the community’s interests that you maintain that motivation, which is why I’ve opted for the sentence I have,” the judge told him. “It’s over to you now to make sure you play your part.”
And for the most part, Hona did, his lawyer said last week at his latest sentencing. After the rough start in 2015, Hona’s frequency of offending dropped dramatically over the past decade, Ravelich said.
“We’ve had 15 years of Mr Hona self-medicating and only two sentences of imprisonment,” he said. “In the past 10 years, we’ve seen full compliance with community-based sentences.
“When he’s supervised, he takes his medication.”
The problems only resurfaced, Ravelich added, the couple of times Hona thought he was cured and stopped taking the medication only to have his illegal urges become overwhelming again months later.
But after now repeated attempts at intensive supervision, Judge Retzlaff said it was time to consider prison again.
Hona faced up to three months’ imprisonment for both of the current charges of obscenely exposing himself in a public place, which he pleaded guilty to earlier this year.
The judge described the defendant as being in “somewhat of a challenging position that you placed yourself in” due to his insistence that court-ordered rehab programmes don’t work.
Rehab, he said, is “only as effective as you apply yourself to it”.
“I see this as entirely your responsibility and a matter you are at fault for,” the judge said, emphasising that 14 days elapsed between each of the two latest offences. “You would have been aware between these incidents that you were relapsing.”
He ordered a starting point of two months for the first offence and a three-month uplift for the next incident.
He then allowed reductions for Hona’s guilty pleas and for a background report showing an “unfortunate and challenging upbringing, with clear deprivation”.
The judge also noted a letter of apology from Hona in which the defendant described the injections as uncomfortable but effective in fighting his urges to offend. Hona agreed he must keep up with his treatment.
“You have no excuses,” the judge said, quoting from the letter. “You are apologetic to the victims for having to see the offending.”
The uplifts and reductions resulted in an end sentence of 1.5 months’ imprisonment.
The judge declined to convert it to a non-custodial sentence. He also ordered six months of post-release conditions.
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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