A woman who posed as a prostitute online as a ploy to lure the owner of a pickup truck into a 2019 carjacking in Aiea was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison Wednesday.
After being released from prison Chynna Robello-Passi, 27, who was charged with one count of carjacking, must complete three years of federal probation, according to the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Kobayashi. Robello-Passi was facing up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In a sentencing memo, Robello-Passi’s attorney, Lynn E. Panagakos, detailed the challenges in Robello-Passi’s young life that led her to use crystal methamphetamine and criminal behavior.
“Through no choice of her own, from early childhood through age 18, Chynna was given the stimulant Concerta, which is a Schedule II controlled substance precisely because it leads to dependence. At age 18, after coming off Concerta and following the death of her father, she began using methamphetamine. Of course she got heavily addicted. Her addiction led to her crime spree. Her crime spree was intense, and it lasted 13 months,” Panagakos said in the memo.
Concerta is drug prescribed to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
In a letter to Kobayashi’s court, Robello-Passi, who has been in custody since late October 2019, apologized to the victims and community and expressed remorse for her actions. “I would never behave this way if I was sober and in my right frame of mind,” Robello-Passi said in the letter. “I am a kind, peaceful and loving person without drugs.”
Panagakos and Assistant U.S. Attorney Micah W. J. Smith and Sara D. Ayabe, who prosecuted the case for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
On Oct. 16, 2019, Robello-Passi went by the name “Carly” on social media to arrange for sex with the owner of a 1973 Datsun pickup truck, who had offered $100 for a sex act, according to a plea agreement. At 11 p.m. that night Robello-Passi arrived at set site in Aiea in a white sedan with “individual 1,” according to court records.
Upon meeting the Datsun owner Robello-Passi started smoking a cannabis cigarette, according to a federal criminal complaint. The pickup truck owner, seated behind the driver’s wheel, then saw a red sedan pull up across the street with two men in it, and suspected that his vehicle would be taken by “means of force and violence and by intimidation,” according to the complaint.
Robello-Passi then burned the back of his neck with the cigarette, prompting the Datsun owner to attempt to drive away. In response, “Individual 1” drove the white sedan to block the Datsun, got out of the car and pointed a handgun at the Datsun owner, telling him to get out of the pickup truck.
The Datsun owner fled on foot and hid in a place where he could watch the theft. He saw one of the men who had arrived in the red sedan get into his truck and drive it away, and Robello-Passi get into one of the other cars. He called 911 shortly after the vehicles drove off, according to federal court documents. Honolulu police met the victim on Iwaena Street in Aiea.
The victim reported that two of the males were dressed in black clothing with bandannas covering their faces, and that a third was wearing a red shirt and hat and his face was not covered, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.
Three Honolulu Police Department officers familiar with Robello-Passi and her “Carly” alter ego and were able to identify her photograph and the victim picked her out in a lineup, according to federal court records. Also, surveillance footage from a nearby building indicated that that Robello-Passi had been “acting in concert with Male 1, Male 2, and Male 3 during the armed carjacking,” according to records.
Eleven days before the armed carjacking, Robello-Passi posed as “Carly” to set up a sex act with a man for $200. In that case, Robello-Passi told the man to shower. He later told police that while he was showering he heard his keys jingling and left the shower to find his wallet and keys and his red 2016 Hyundai missing.
A week later Robello-Passi allegedly stole a white 2018 Honda Accord. Both vehicles were used in the Datsun carjacking. On Oct. 17, 2019, police found the Accord abandoned and on fire in Waipahu. The next day the Red Hyundai was recovered after it struck a rock wall and was found with the engine running in Haleiwa.
