Mobster threatened to cut off woman’s fingers
A Mongrel Mobster asked a woman, “Do you want to lose your fingers?” when she refused to hand over her phone during a debt collection visit.
The woman thought she saw that 41-year-old Ricky John Barakat was holding a knife as he said it.
Terrified, she handed over the phone which he threw on the ground.
Barakat took shoes, which he piled into a duffel bag, but he was caught by police nearby because the woman had activated a panic alarm during the visit by two men.
Barakat and 45-year-old Richard Jody Williams, who likes to be known as Rapana, went to the house in Christchurch in November 2015, and found the woman was at home with a young child.
Barakat said they were gang members and were there collecting a debt. Williams stayed on the doorstep, talking to the woman and trying to calm her down while Barakat made his threats and took the property.
In another incident in October and November 2015, Barakat was wearing a Mongrel Mob t-shirt when he threatened another woman and made her hand over the keys to a car he was claiming. She had previously bought it from someone in Ashburton.
He told her that if she did not give him the keys, he would bring people around to take the car. He also burgled $5000 worth of property from her house while she was making a complaint at the police station.
Barakat and Williams admitted the robbery charge, and Barakat also admitted burglary, theft, trespass, shoplifting, and demanding with intent to steal.
Defence counsel for Barakat, Josh Lucas, said his client had written apology letters. He had done rehabilitation and training courses while on remand in prison. The offending occurred when mental health issues were surfacing. He had bipolar and schizophrenia issues and he had received head injuries in two car crashes.
Judge Gilbert said it was “too little, too late” for the apologies because Barakat’s victims had been terrified. He had 16 pages listing his criminal record and he had served many jail terms. His work in prison was a hopeful sign that he would do something constructive after his release.
He imposed a four-year jail term.
He noted Rapana had convictions dating back before 2000 but had been out of trouble for 17 years. He had achieved that after growing up in an “anti-social gang-type environment”.
“A lot of people don’t realise how difficult it is to change in those circumstances,” he said, imposing a 16-month jail term. Rapana will be released almost immediately because he has already served about nine months in custody on remand.
Category: News
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