A police vehicle guarded the entrance to the Tribesmen gang headquarters in Papatoetoe in 2000 after Lenin Waye Lazarus, pictured, murdered Shane Francis Hohepa.
A Tribesmen gang member who murdered an alleged “police nark” at a patching party was recalled to prison after being charged with a series of offences against a woman, including threatening to “send the boys over and f*** her up”.
But while the charges police laid against Lenin Wayne Lazarus relating to the woman have since been withdrawn, he is still in prison.
Lazarus is now fighting for his release, arguing his continued incarceration is unlawful and a “blatant abuse of power”.
According to a Court of Appeal decision released last week, Lazarus is serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the murder of Shane “Shine” Hohepa, a 24-year-old father of two, in 2000.
Lazarus, then 30, shot Hohepa point blank in the head at a patching party at the Tribesmen gang headquarters in Papatoetoe on January 30 that year.
At trial, the Crown successfully argued Lazarus “executed” him because he believed he was a “police nark”.
His defence was that while he did pull the trigger, he was “wasted” and incapable of forming murderous intent.
According to the Court of Appeal decision, Lazarus was released on parole in October 2021. But he had only been out for a few months when in June 2022, police responded to an incident of alleged wilful damage.
A woman told police Lazarus smashed the door to her hotel room with a weapon. Then the following month, she reported he was following her and threatened her over the phone to “send the boys over and f*** her up”.
As a result, police laid charges against Lazarus and applied for him to be recalled to continue his sentence of life imprisonment.
On July 25, 2022, the Parole Board made an interim order for his recall and the following month made a final recall order on the grounds that he posed an undue risk to the safety of the community or any person, and that he breached his release conditions.
According to the decision, Lazarus subsequently appeared before the Parole Board on three occasions. In the board’s latest decision, issued in October last year, it was satisfied on the basis of the woman’s evidence and a psychological report that Lazarus needed counselling to address issues relating to the woman and that he should not be released.
Lazarus then applied to the High Court in November for a writ of habeas corpus, which challenges the legality of a person’s detention.
He said he had been detained unlawfully as the charges police had laid were withdrawn in June 2023.
But Justice Mark Woolford rejected his argument, finding “[t]here is no doubt that Mr Lazarus is lawfully detained”.
He noted Lazarus was sentenced to life imprisonment and could only be released by the Parole Board if it was satisfied on reasonable grounds that he would not pose an undue risk to the safety of the community or any person if released.
Justice Woolford stated that undue risk was a broad term and that while the charges had been withdrawn, the Parole Board could take into account underlying facts that it found were established.
He also said it was not essential to a finding of undue risk that an offender had committed further offending.
Rather, the Parole Board considers a range of risk factors that emerge from an offender’s actions while subject to release conditions which may amount to “undue risk”, even though the actions do not necessarily amount to committing an offence.
In his latest effort to be released, Lazarus took the Department of Corrections to the Court of Appeal seeking an extension of time to bring an appeal against the High Court’s decision.
His application was similar to the one he made to the High Court and did not address the delay in bringing the proposed appeal and why an extension should be granted.
Corrections opposed the application on the grounds that the application for a writ of habeas corpus was declined six months ago, there was no adequate explanation for the delay, and the proposed appeal was not genuinely arguable.
The Court of Appeal stated the ultimate question was whether it was in the interests of justice to grant the extension.
In finding that it was not and declining the application, the senior court ruled the fact that no explanation had been given for the delay counted against it being granted.
“More significantly, however, we do not think the proposed appeal has any prospects of success, and for this reason we consider that an extension of time should not be granted.”
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.
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