The man whose bungled bathroom renovation was the reason behind an alleged kidnapping and aggravated robbery said he declined to have the Mongrel Mob involved in retrieving his money.
The Crown’s case is that Rangi lured the complainant, who has interim name suppression, to his house under the pretence he wanted a quote for building a deck.
While there, it is alleged the man was detained, threatened to have his toes cut off with hedge clippers and made to transfer $2000 out of his account, the Crown said in Queenstown District Court yesterday.
A police evidential interview recorded on December 21, 2020, was played in court.
Rangi said he told the customer he could get the complainant around to his house and get the money off him and the man had agreed.
The man, who had known the complainant since he was a teenager, denied he had given permission for Rangi to organise such a meeting.
Rangi admitted knowing Rewai Taylor, the Mongrel Mob member who was also at his home that night.
The complainant recognised Mr Taylor when the complainant arrived at his house, Rangi said.
Mr Taylor, who he had known from primary school, came around to his house to discuss a property Rangi’s brother was looking at buying, believing it may have been owned by someone in the mob, Rangi said.
Later, when pushed by Detective Fred Shandley, Rangi admitted the talk between Mr Taylor and the complainant turned to a debt the complainant owed Mr Taylor.
He did not know what the debt was for, Rangi said.
Det Shandley told Rangi the money had been transferred into Mr Taylor’s account before being transferred into another account, that of the partner of Mr Taylor’s brother.
Rangi said they were talking on the deck at the back of the house, not talking in the garage as the complainant had said and as a woman living at the address had also verified.
He felt he was involved in something that he should not have been, Rangi said in the interview.
On Tuesday, jurors heard how the complainant left the garage three times — twice to go to the toilet and a third time to go to his van to get a business card.
Crown lawyer Mike Brownlie asked what was left behind in the garage when he went to his vehicle.
The complainant said his phone and his wallet, but he kept his keys.
Mr Brownlie asked the man why he did not leave at that point.
He said he was scared something would happen to his family.
"A lot of things were going through my mind at the time."
Most of the threats were made by Rangi, the man in red barely spoke, the complainant said.
Under cross-examination by Rangi’s lawyer Sonia Vidal, the complainant identified the other man as Mr Taylor.
She put it to the complainant it was not her client that was making the threats but Mr Taylor, whom the man owed money for drugs.
Rangi and Mr Taylor communicated by note throughout, which they later burned, the complainant said.
The complainant could not remember who had taken his phone and completed the transaction of the $2000 out of his account about 6.25pm.
CCTV footage taken from inside Rangi’s house showed he was in the kitchen at that time.
The trial continues today.
