Israel Lama, left, and Jade Jerome have pleaded guilty to participating in the prolonged torture of a stranger. Photo composite / NZME
WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
A young Head Hunters member who was the ringleader in a gruesome, hours-long torture session – including using a power drill on the stranger’s leg and burning him to the point he needed a skin graft – said he was “triggered” to seek “vigilante justice” because of his own childhood abuse.
But that doesn’t get anywhere near explaining how such depraved and extreme violence could have been meted out over roughly 19 hours, a judge told Israel Lama today as he was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland alongside his younger brother.
“Offending of this nature shocks the community, for good reason,” Justice Mathew Downs said, imposing a sentence of nine years and six months’ imprisonment for the older Lama with a stipulation he serve at least half before he can apply for parole.
“Those who torture others must be seen to be held accountable.”
Younger brother Sefelino Lama, who was 17 at the time of offending, was ordered to serve a sentence of home detention. He is expected to remain at the Grace Foundation rehab facility, which submitted a glowing assessment to the judge.
Justice Downs pointed out repeatedly that, because of the younger defendant’s age at the time, he was restricted from factoring the repeated violence into the sentence starting point. It included, however, shaving the victim’s eyebrows, beating him and extinguishing a cigarette on his forehead.
Authorities said Israel Lama instigated the May 2023 torture session after the victim slapped his girlfriend’s bottom at an Auckland Central nightclub.
But court documents suggest the 23-year-old had an interest in torture well before coming up with a feeble justification to exercise his cruelty. He had earlier created the handle “torturous88″ on Instagram – 88 being a reference to the Head Hunters, widely recognised in New Zealand’s criminal underworld.
Some of the acts for which he was sentenced today were recorded and used as content for the now-deleted account.
Six other men have admitted to having followed Israel Lama’s lead that morning, including another younger brother who is set to be sentenced later this week.
The victim and the defendants were in downtown Auckland about 4am on a Sunday morning when the victim was confronted about his suspected inappropriate behaviour inside a nearby bar.
He repeatedly denied touching the woman and agreed to go back to the bar to check CCTV with the group. Police later discovered through CCTV that he had touched the woman.
Instead of taking the man back to the nightclub, the group took him to a Helensville home associated with the Head Hunters.
The group made the victim strip naked before he was seated in a camping chair, as Lama ordered co-defendant Jade Jerome to bind his arms and legs with electrical cords.
“Israel Lama uplifted a Makita electric impact driver fitted with a screwdriver bit and started drilling a hole in [the victim’s] left thigh,” the agreed summary of fact states, noting that the drill was also used on his shin and knee.
“The drill was used forcefully so that even though the impact driver was not fitted with a threaded drill bit, it deeply penetrated [the victim’s] flesh and muscle approximately one centimetre.”
As he drilled, Israel Lama began to interrogate the stranger, who continued to deny he had slapped the woman’s bottom.
His wounds were later treated with toilet paper and tape before the elder Lama switched torture tactics, retrieving a large knife that had been heated up on a nearby gas burner.
The knife was used to cut the victim’s chest before the flat end was used to cause severe burns, including on his face.
The victim was then ordered by Israel Lama to get on the floor, at which point the crowd began punching and kicking him, including blows to his head. Group members passed around an aluminium pole and beat the man until the pole became so bent it was no longer usable.
“The defendants complained about this and taunted [the victim] for breaking the pole,” court documents state.
“They joked about having to beat [him] further for breaking their pole.”
The beating stopped after Israel Lama came up with another sadistic tactic and ordered someone to bring him a jug of hot water. As others held down the squirming victim, the ringleader again ordered him to confess, which he refused.
“Israel Lama then poured the hot water onto [his] already seared chest and poured the hot water onto [his] genitals,” documents state, noting that others in the room yahooed and laughed as he did so. “[He] could not offer resistance and remained on the ground trying to protect his genitals.”
Another person then splashed cold water on the victim.
At that point, Jerome used a hammer to repeatedly hit the man’s legs, shins and knees – making it difficult for him to walk afterwards.
Israel Lama later took the victim’s own belt and began whipping him with it. He then passed the item around as others in the room took turns – bruising his back and bottom.
Samuel Lam, the brother who is to be sentenced later this week, strangled him for around 10 seconds, lifting him off the ground by his neck.
The two younger Lama brothers stood guard after others “retired from the torture to rest”, making conversation with the victim and explaining that they used to be with the Bloods gang before switching allegiance to the Head Hunters.
The victim asked if he could get dressed and the brothers refused – a callous indignity that the judge repeatedly referred to today.
“You are right to hang your head,” he told the younger defendant.
The victim was subjected to another round of beating with the belt, while Israel Lama made racist remarks and comments about slavery, before the younger brothers and Jerome took him away because a gang meeting was about to start.
But he was brought back about an hour later, at which point Lama debated with the victim whether he should let him go. He suggested the victim would need to pay him $20,000 before he could be set free. The victim said he didn’t have that kind of money but offered to work for him to pay it off, the agreed facts state.
He was dropped off where the ordeal started in Auckland Central. Lama had given him a deadline of four days to come up with the $20,000.
Defence lawyer Mark Edgar acknowledged his client’s demand for money but said it wasn’t extortion so much as a throw-away comment after Israel Lama had already decided to release him.
The judge wasn’t so convinced.
Edgar also acknowledged his client was the “elder statesman” of the group but said he was damaged by his own violent upbringing.
“It was triggering for him,” Edgar said of the bottom slap. “He was feeling rage. He had no plan. He was very distraught ... and very, very angry.
“This was very much an issue of history repeating itself.”
The victim, who was referred to as “X” because of his permanent name suppression, “exacerbated” what happened due to his persistent denials, the defence lawyer said.
He said his client realised “the enormity of what he had done” after taking a short rest that morning. He then took steps to release the victim, he said.
“He’s ashamed,” Edgar said. “He’s ashamed for his family. He’s ashamed he brought his brothers into this, who simply followed his lead.”
But Crown prosecutor Pip McNabb emphasised that the offending was “cruel, callous and degrading” – and among the worst of its kind. She pointed out that he was already on bail for three separate offences at the time of the offending and is now serving a three-year sentence for the previous crimes, including a disturbing robbery in which he urinated on the victim.
The judge agreed.
“That X had slapped your girlfriend’s bottom does not make your offending any less serious,” Justice Downs said. “I reject any notion that it does.”
He described the facts of the case as “frankly disturbing”.
“Pleasure – I repeat, pleasure – was taken in the torture of a fellow human being,” he said, pointing out that the main defendant then used social media “like a trophy”.
The judge quoted extensively from the victim impact statement, which was not read aloud in full.
“I may have survived physically, but mentally I live with this every day,” the victim said, explaining: “I don’t sleep. I panic when I hear power tools or raised voices.
“I flinch in public. I carry the fear this could happen again.”
The victim noted that, like the defendants, he had also known struggle and hardship.
“But never, ever would I think of doing something like this to another human being,” he wrote.
Also appearing for sentencing today were co-defendants Jerome, Harmon Unasa and Nathan Tuaiti.
Co-defendant Ricky Harder, whose participation was found to be limited, was sentenced in May to home detention.
Lawyers for Jerome and Unasa both told the judge today that their clients were remorseful for their participation. Jerome’s lawyer, Ian Tucker, emphasised that his client has no ties to the Head Hunters.
But prosecutors asked for a starting point sentence, before reductions were taken into account, of 11 years each. It was just two years less than the ringleader, McNabb said, because both men participated in the violence and served as Israel Lama’s “right-hand men”.
The judge agreed to the 11-year starting point, explaining that anything less wouldn’t be fitting of such a “prolonged, multi-faceted and sadistic” kidnap and torture.
He pointed out that there’s nothing in court documentation suggesting that the ringleader asked Jerome to beat the victim with a hammer.
“You did that seemingly on your own initiative,” he said. “That speaks volumes.”
As with the other defendants, the judge declined to allow a reduction for remorse.
“There were many, many opportunities over the 19 or 20 hours for an act of compassion,” the judge said, explaining that it could have been as simple as offering the victim a glass of water. “Something to acknowledge that he was another human.
“Neither of you, nor anyone else for that matter, did anything of the sort.”
He ordered a sentence of eight years and six and a half months’ imprisonment for Unasa and eight years and three months for Jerome. They, too, will have to serve at least half of their sentences before they can apply for parole.
“You were willing and active lieutenants throughout,” the judge explained.
The sentencings were divided into three back-to-back hearings today. Tuaiti, the final defendant to face the judge, was ordered to serve a term of eight years and three and a half months.
He will also have to serve at least half before he can apply for parole.
The patched King Cobras member was captured on video holding the victim in place, with his foot on the other man’s shoulder, as scalding water was poured on him and he screamed in pain. It was one of the acts Israel Lama had chosen to post on Instagram.
“Ol mate here reckons he can slap me Mrs arse in the club,” the video caption read.
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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