Ratana Church minister convicted of sex offending has multiple Facebook pages shut down

Senior Journalist - crime and justice·NZ Herald·

8 Apr, 2019 10:22 PM5 mins to read

When Daniel Nehemia was ordained he posted these photographs on one of his Facebook pages. He can no longer use the site as he is a convicted sex offender. Photo / Facebook

Facebook has banned a number of online profiles run by a recidivist child sex offender who admitted more offending part way through a District Court trial last week.

And the social media giant will keep removing profiles set up by him and others convicted of sex crimes who are not permitted to use the networking site.

Daniel Brass Raharaha Nehemia - also known as Brass Boyboy Nehemia and Brass Boyboy Raharaha - went on trial last week in the Auckland District Court on nine charges of sexually assaulting three boys between 1977 and 1999.

After two of the three victims gave evidence of the abuse, Nehemia changed his plea to guilty and admitted all of the offending.

He will be sentenced in June on three charges of indecencies between males, four of indecencies with a boy under the age of 12 and two of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

It will be the third time Nehemia has been convicted and sentenced for sex offending against children.

Daniel Nehemia was a minister in the Ratana Church when he was arrested for child sex offending for a third time. Photo / Facebook

On the first day of the trial Crown Prosecutor Jo Murdoch revealed that he has two previous convictions and has served jail time for sexually abusing young boys - including one at the church where his father was a minister.

Nehemia was ordained as a minister in the Ratana Church in 2015.

All of the offending happened before then.

He was stood down by the church about two hours after the Herald first revealed he was facing child sex charges last year.

Following his guilty plea last week Facebook became aware of three profiles run by Nehemia.

The profiles were in various names, including Daniel Nehemia and Daniel Brass Raharaha Nehemia.

On the latter he posted multiple times a day with bible verses and other religious quotations.

One of his last posts was on Wednesday last week.

Nehemia was supposed to return to court for the second day of his trial but revealed he was in hospital after a "bad rash" spread all over his body.

"This morning I've been admitted into Auckland Hospital to have test done as I haven't been feeling the best," he wrote, later posting a series of photographs of him in a hospital
bed smiling and surrounded by supporters.

Facebook has since removed the profile - and all others set up or run by Nehemia.

It is understood they are monitoring him and will continue to remove any new pages.

He appears to have set up at least one after Facebook took initial action.

Facebook has a strict user policy that states convicted sex offenders are not allowed to
use the site.

"Convicted sex offenders aren't allowed to use Facebook," the policy states.

"If you've encountered an account that may belong to a convicted sex offender, please report it to us."

In recent years Facebook has deactivated a number of other accounts belonging to convicted sex offenders.

Nehemia had a number of Facebook pages that he posted on regularly. The social media giant has now banned him as convicted sex offenders are not permitted to use the network. Photo / Facebook

Convicted Whanganui dance teacher Stayz Raukawa

had several pages - at least one set up after he was initially banned - shut down after he was released on parole in March last year.

Raukawa was sentenced to three years, six months in prison in October 2015 for four charges of unlawful sexual connection and eight counts of indecency with a teenager.

That teenager was Bex Sloan, who later spoke to the Herald about her journey for justice and waiving her name suppression to share her sex abuse survival story.

And in August 2017 Facebook banned repeat child sex abuser Rory Francis from using the site.

Francis served six-and-a-half years in prison for a raft of sex crimes against two young children over three years.

He had been diagnosed as HIV positive before the offending, which came after an earlier jail term for sexually assaulting a 7-year-old boy.

While in prison Francis began to identify as a female and changed his name to Laken McKay.

When freed on parole he used those details on social media sites.

Francis was sent back to prison less than a year after his release after he was caught trading sexual services for methamphetamine.

From prison he wrote a letter to the Herald begging prison bosses to keep him "behind a fence" for life, threatening that if he is released from prison he would return to prostitution and "give as many people HIV and Hepatitis C" as he can.