{"id":499252,"date":"2026-06-28T07:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/499252\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:11:09","slug":"convicted-murderer-beni-leaaetoa-avoids-prison-recall-after-meth-plot-sentencing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/499252\/","title":{"rendered":"Convicted murderer Beni Lea\u2019aetoa avoids prison recall after meth plot sentencing"},"content":{"rendered":"

That investigation was an offshoot of Operation Trojan Shield, a scheme by the FBI and Australian Federal Police to create a fake encrypted messaging app called Anom that was marketed directly to criminals. It resulted in hundreds of arrests around the world, including Lea\u2019aetoa and his co-defendants in New Zealand<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe FBI and Australian Federal Police tricked organised crime figures to communicate with one another on the Anom communication platform. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Court documents state the defendant was approached in November 2019 by a childhood friend who is alleged to have been the head of the criminal syndicate in New Zealand. That man vanished on what was supposed to be the first day of his trial earlier this year and has not yet been returned to custody. <\/p>\n

The friend gave Lea\u2019aetoa an encrypted phone and asked if he wanted any \u201cwork\u201d. The two then discussed Lea\u2019aetoa paying $110,000 for one kilogram of methamphetamine. Lea\u2019aetoa indicated he would get an associate known as \u201cSips\u201d to pick up the haul the next evening. <\/p>\n

The next day, however, Lea\u2019aetoa informed the old acquaintance that \u201cSips\u201d couldn\u2019t make it because his mum had died. He made no further arrangements to get the drugs. <\/p>\n

Had the deal been completed, Lea\u2019aetoa would have been facing up to life imprisonment. <\/p>\n

The judge noted that Lea\u2019aetoa\u2019s last prison stint came as the result of a melee between two groups in which the victim was punched, struck with wood and stabbed in the lower back by the defendant\u2019s group. <\/p>\n

While in prison, he focused on education and learning a trade. He\u2019d been in steady employment for the past 13 years, taking on a foreman role, and had become a dependable husband and father, the judge noted. And he had no apparent slip-ups until his friend tempted him with the offer of a quick profit, she noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have a real doubt that you ever intended to carry this agreement through,\u201d Justice Wilkinson-Smith said, adding that she still needed to sentence him on the basis that he did intend to before getting cold feet. <\/p>\n

\u201cI accept, though, that your involvement in this conspiracy was short-lived in the extreme. You withdrew from that almost immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JusticeJustice Michele Wilkinson-Smith. Photo \/ Bevan Conley<\/p>\n

Lea\u2019aetoa described his involvement with the other man as \u201cstupid\u201d and suggested he had no real plans to go through with it. <\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Paul Wicks, KC, argued that his client\u2019s mistake was a \u201cconflict avoidance response\u201d relating to the re-emergence of \u201ca figure from his distant past\u201d rather than a considered and intentional return to a criminal lifestyle. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is embarrassed by these decisions he made,\u201d Wicks said. \u201cHe deeply regrets his involvement … It\u2019s not aligned with the 23 years Mr Lea\u2019aetoa has strived to turn his life around despite much adversity in his younger years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to prison after all these years, Wicks said, would be a \u201cdevastating outcome\u201d for his client. <\/p>\n

It was important, the judge said, to give large reductions to people who voluntarily abandoned such conspiracies. Just as a prison sentence could act as a deterrent, acknowledging a change of heart may incentivise others to do the same, she explained. <\/p>\n

She ordered a four-year starting point, lower than the five to six years that Crown prosecutor Amelia Mateni had requested. The judge then allowed 30% in combined reductions for his guilty plea and other factors, including remorse and his \u201cexemplary\u201d efforts at rehabilitation over the past 23 years. <\/p>\n

She did not increase the sentence for a 2023 objectionable material charge that came about after police searched his phone in relation to the drugs investigation. Authorities found a single image, which Lea\u2019aetoa said he forgot to delete after an acquaintance sent it to him unsolicited. A District Court judge had earlier sentenced him to a $400 fine.<\/p>\n

Justice Wilkinson-Smith\u2019s calculations should have resulted in an end sentence of two years and four months\u2019 imprisonment, more than the usual two-year threshold for non-custodial alternatives.<\/p>\n

But she said prison would be disproportionately severe given the defendant\u2019s \u201cextremely pro-social response\u201d since his imprisonment as a young person. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou went to prison as a boy,\u201d she said, adding that he managed to transform himself into \u201ca fundamentally good and pro-social man\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost people can\u2019t achieve that.\u201d <\/p>\n

There were deep breaths and applause in the gallery as the judge said she would instead order a sentence of one year\u2019s home detention. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That investigation was an offshoot of Operation Trojan Shield, a scheme by the FBI and Australian Federal Police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10106,74,17094,33524,249556,5767,9060,17150,249558,79912,106,249557,44406,1868,13240,61390,111,43,139,69,1523,22388,4517,36095,6046,8442,24178,9764,9100,19862,1961,686],"class_list":["post-499252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admitting","tag-after","tag-avoid","tag-avoids","tag-beni","tag-convicted","tag-decades","tag-fate","tag-halfbaked","tag-hanging","tag-head","tag-leaaetoa","tag-managed","tag-meth","tag-methamphetamine","tag-murderer","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-participation","tag-past","tag-plot","tag-potential","tag-prison","tag-recall","tag-sentencing","tag-such","tag-supply","tag-this","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}