Woman to be tried in extortion
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
A co-owner of an O'ahu food sauce company was ordered yesterday to stand trial on robbery, theft, kidnapping and extortion charges after one of the woman's partners said three armed men threatened to shoot him if he did not agree to sell her his interest in a shrimp sales wagon.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Troy Nitsche said during the preliminary hearing that he thought co-owner Connie Aragona, 46, wanted to talk to him about supplying shrimp at a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D., when she asked him to come to her office in Pearl City just past noon on Aug. 19.
Connie Aragona will stand trial on charges of theft, robbery and extortion.
However, Nitsche said Aragona demanded that he sell her his interest in Giovanni's Aloha Food, as well as his sole ownership of a shrimp lunch wagon that Nitsche purchased from Aragona in 1997.
Nitsche said that when he declined the offer, two of the men in Aragona's office blocked the doors, preventing him from leaving. And when he protested, saying he might have to report the matter to police, three men threatened him with pistols.
As he tried to make his way out of the room, one of the men began choking him and then smashed him in the head with the butt of a handgun, Nitsche said.
He said he eventually signed the agreement after the gunmen said they could make him disappear, "like magician David Copperfield," and said that he needed a bullet when he said he needed a doctor to look at the gash on his head.
One of Nitsche's workers, Alex Viveiros, said Aragona showed up at Nitsche's shrimp truck in Kahuku later the same day and demanded the truck's cash box. Viveiros said he turned it over to her after a brief telephone conversation with Nitsche. He said the day's proceeds, $3,500, were in the box.
He said Aragona was accompanied by a man who wore a motorcycle jacket with the name "Pete" and the word "president" on the front of the jacket.
Judge Tenney Tongg set Aragona's arraignment in Circuit Court for 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 10.
She was returned to the Oahu Community Correctional Center, unable to post $120,000 bail.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly said which state the town of Sturgis is in.
