Gang boss can keep car and cash — judge

The High Court has refused a police bid to seize the car and cash of a feared gang leader, saying he needed the car to get around because there was no public transport. reports.

JACK MAKITANIA Whakatihi is president of one of New Zealand’s most notorious gangs, the Nomads.

The police caught him and put him away for 21⁄ years for his part in a methamphetamine drug ring. He admitted one count of possessing methamphetamine for supply in 2012.

Whakatihi had said the methamphetamine was payment for a Harley-Davidson motorbike, that it was provided on behalf of the gang and was distributed to members who consumed it.

When he was let out on parole this year, the police applied to court for the forfeiture of his car and cash – the proceeds, they said, of his crime.

But High Court Justice Joe Williams has refused: he said the legal costs would outweigh the value of Whakatihi’s assets, a damaged $3640 Ford Falcon and $390 in cash.

He agreed Whakatihi had unlawfully benefited from the sale of methamphetamine – a profit of about $16,800.

But police had failed to establish the cash they found has come from drug sales, Justice Williams said. It was more likely than not to be club fees, which Whakatihi had said he collected as president of the Foxton branch of the Nomads gang.

As for the car, Justice Williams said Whakatihi relied on family

The Nomads caused irreparable damage to lots and lots of people. Robert Teppett

support and forfeiture of the car would create undue hardship in a community where little public transport was available.

Last week, the car was parked out the back of Whakatihi’s Foxton home – but, on Friday, Whakatihi was recalled to jail. The Parole Board said he posed an undue risk to the public. But his sentence ends in February and the prison will be forced to set him free again.

Whakatihi is a successor to Dennis ‘‘Mossie’’ Hines, who died behind bars in 2009 amid rumours that he had killed at least two people – but was never prosecuted for murder. The Nomads have a history of brutality and witness intimidation.

In October 1993 elderly Foxton doctor Howard Teppett was beaten to death with an iron bar in his own home, and his 78-year-old sister was brutally raped. One of the two men convicted of the killing was a Nomads prospect, but the gang vehemently denied involvement.

Yesterday, Howard Teppett’s son Robert told the Sunday Star-Times: ‘‘The Nomads caused irreparable damage to lots and lots of people, not just my father, people who were vulnerable to their intimidation.’’

Hines was a notorious ‘‘taxer’’, Robert Teppett said. He took what he wanted from those who were on the wrong side of the tracks or poor. All the police had sought to do was ‘‘ tax’’ Whakatihi as the Nomads had done to the community for 20 years.

Two decades ago the Nomads – a Black Power breakaway – were a fearsome street gang. Police launched a massive crackdown in 1994. Mark Lammas, who was the police Palmerston North District Commander at the time, said Nomads ‘‘to a large extent, had the community cowered down’’.

Since Hines’ death and Whakatihi’s jailing, locals said Foxton and the Horowhenua had become a safer place to live. ‘‘The town is completely different to what it was in the 90s,’’ Robert Teppett said. ‘‘They’ve got some really good things going on.’’

In May, the community commemorated the life of Dr Teppett, who would have been 100 this year, with a ball to kickstart fundraising for a scholarship foundation to help Manawatu College students study medicine or nursing. Mayor Brendan Duffy said everyone knew there was a small group of family- related gang members but the gang had been quiet for a while.