Clockwise from bottom left: Co-defendants Vini Mahoni, Lika Feterika, George Mahoni, Vili Laungaue and Devonte Iakopo are jointly charged in the High Court at Auckland with the murder of Head Hunters member Charles Pongi, who was fatally shot during a large brawl at Pt England's Taurima Reserve in August 2023. Photos / Michael Craig
When members of a lesser-known street gang showed up near an East Auckland playground for a pre-arranged rumble with New Zealand’s largest motorcycle gang, they intended to win at all costs - even if it meant playing dirty.
That was the scenario painted by prosecutors today after five murder co-defendants pleaded not guilty to contributing to the August 2023 shooting death of Head Hunters member Charles Pongi.
Fitus members Devonte Iakopo, George Mahoni, Vili Laungaue and Lika Feterika, as well as gang associate Vini Mahoni, are alleged to have been among a 22-car convoy that showed up at Pt England’s Taurima Reserve that Saturday afternoon alongside allies the Rebels.
Those at the park, where children were playing on the swings, could “have been forgiven for thinking it was an armed insurgency”, Crown prosecutor Henry Steele told jurors during his opening address.
A fight had been agreed upon inside what was considered the heart of Head Hunters territory, but it was supposed to be a one-on-one confrontation, Steele said.
“They [the Fitus and Rebels alliance] came en masse, and they came in much greater numbers than the Head Hunters were expecting,” the prosecutor explained. “Clearly, this was not going to be a clean fight, and, from the Rebels’ and Fitus’ perspective, it was never meant to be.”
Realising they were “hopelessly outnumbered”, Steele added, most of the Head Hunters made a hasty retreat and “played the last card available to them” - signalling for a masked gunman to enter the fray.
The Head Hunters-affiliated shooter, who was never identified by police, fired roughly eight shots and non-fatally wounded two men, neither of whom is currently on trial.
That’s when the Fitus and Rebels group began firing back, according to a roughly 60-second CCTV clip of the incident. Prosecutors allege at least four members of the defendants’ group had firearms, including Iakopo, Laungaue and George Mahoni, while the other defendants would have at least known about the guns and the enhanced danger of death that came with them.
Steele described the group’s tactics as “simple but brutally effective”: start with a “forward party who are clearly ready to use their superior numbers to win the fight”, and, if that didn’t pan out, defer to the rear guard.
“They’ve got more men, and if that doesn’t work they’ve got more guns - and bigger guns,” Steele said.
While not all of the defendants had guns, they can all be found guilty if jurors believed they knew about the firearms and the likelihood they would be used, the prosecutor suggested.
“The Crown says they would have known ... given the frequency at which guns are possessed by the group,” Steele said. “If the Fitus were to gather in numbers, especially in these numbers ... inevitably there would be firearms present.”
But even that day there would have been ample warning signs, he said, that guns would turn up at “the showdown at Taurima Reserve”.
Laungaue had pulled a gun on someone earlier that same day after getting into a sideline dispute with a fellow spectator at a youth rugby league game, the Crown said.
He has a propensity for pulling guns on people when he perceives he’s been slighted, Steele said, promising to show a video of the same defendant from days earlier in which he allegedly pulled a gun on another bystander whose clothing he didn’t like.
And while the convoy slowly snaked its way to the reserve for the brawl, several of the defendants are alleged to have participated in a road rage confrontation in which two guns were flashed at an innocent motorist.
Laungaue and George Mahoni have pleaded not guilty to participation in that incident, which the jury is also tasked with deciding. Two others, not currently on trial, pleaded guilty last year to their involvement in the incident.
Between the road rage incident and the park shooting, the group allegedly made a pitstop at a Panmure home. On CCTV from that location, it is expected jurors will see the men appearing to re-enact the armed road rage incident and George Mahoni mimicking firing a rifle as if in practice for what was about to happen, the Crown said.
Prosecutors have theorised that George Mahoni was the one who fired the fatal shot, but they acknowledged they don’t know for sure. He was seen on the video wearing a distinctive broad-brimmed hat, colourful LA Lakers hoodie, a brown bandana over his face and a bullet-proof vest as he advanced and fired.
Pongi suffered a gunshot wound to his collarbone, with the bullet lodging in his spine. The moment he was shot was captured on CCTV. He died after others drove him to Auckland Hospital.
Lawyers for each defendant took turns giving brief statements after the Crown concluded. One after one, they repeatedly asked jurors to closely analyse the CCTV footage.
“There is a whole other side to this picture,” said Claire Robertson, representing Fitus leader Iakopo, who spoke first and longest.
She suggested the Crown and police had viewed the events of that day “through a very one-sided lens”.
It’s an “inconvenient truth” for the Crown that the shooter on the Head Hunters’ side was the first to open fire, she said.
“It’s an inconvenient truth that the gunmen from the Head Hunters’ side kept firing on the other group,” she added. “The gunman for the Head Hunters side hit two human targets as they were running for safety.
“The inconvenient truth is the shooter for the Head Hunters’ side kept firing shot after shot after shot.”
The gunman wasn’t giving up, she said, and when return shots were fired they were in the area of the gunman “in a clear attempt to neutralise the lethal threat he continued to pose”.
Pongi may have been accidentally wounded as he stood behind the Head Hunters gunman, Robertson suggested.
“In these circumstances, Mr Pongi’s death was a tragic but legally justified shooting,” she said.
Robertson acknowledged Iakopo was at the reserve that afternoon and was in possession of a firearm, which she said he carried for protection. But he was not one of those who fired, she said.
Defence lawyer Shane Cassidy, meanwhile, accepted that client George Mahoni was one of those who fired. But it was only after a third volley of shots that he “engaged in defensive acts”, Cassidy said.
Prior to that moment, he said, George Mahoni had no intention of using a weapon or participating in the planned fight.
“He was effectively a bystander - and whatever the beef was, it wasn’t his beef.”
Laungaue’s lawyer, Richard Keem, said his client was unarmed and also not interested in participating in a fight. And Feterika’s lawyer, Nick Williams, said his client was also unarmed.
Williams predicted the CCTV would show his client “running for his life” when the other side opened fire.
Although his client wasn’t responsible for the return fire, it “was a reasonable response in the circumstances”, he said. None of the defendants expected anything other than a one-on-one fight, he suggested.
Lester Cordwell, representing Fitus associate Vini Mahoni, said his client was only at the reserve that day because he knew people there, including his co-defendant brother.
“The Crown are over-reaching when they say he was part of an unlawful common plan,” Cordwell said. “Mere presence is not enough.”
The Crown had earlier said they didn’t “seek to sugarcoat” the presence of the shooter on behalf of the Head Hunters.
“They fired first and they were close - really close - to the advancing party of the opposing group,” Steele said.
But the return fire from the defendants’ group continued even after that threat had abated, he suggested.
“There was always going to be a gunfight and the defendants knew it,” he said. “Why else would you wear a bulletproof vest?”
The trial is set to continue tomorrow before Justice Greg Blanchard and the jury.
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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