A 54-year-old career criminal arrested in January for breaking into the Oahu Country Club is in federal custody after he was charged with a firearm offense following a traffic collision.
Jon Frederick Rapozo was out on bail in a state case when he was arrested Oct. 11 on a federal warrant after being charged by criminal complaint Oct. 10 with being a felon in possession of ammunition. He is scheduled for a detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rom A. Trader on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion Oct. 16 to detain Rapozo without bail.
Rapozo has 42 prior state convictions Opens in a new tab, including for assaulting a police officer, burglary, felony theft, breaking into a car, violating parole, assault and felony drug offenses.
He was arrested Jan. 7 with Gary David Mendonca Jr., 39, and Jeffrey Glenn Werner, 51, and charged with burglary in the second degree, a class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
The trio allegedly broke into and trashed a section of the men’s locker room at the country club in Nuuanu.
In the federal case, according to an affidavit authored by an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who is assigned to the Hawaii Violent Crime Task Force, Rapozo allegedly was driving a black Audi A4 sedan on Aug. 6, 2023, when he swerved to avoid a car and smashed into two parked cars.
Emergency Medical Services technicians responding to the crash treated Rapozo at the scene. He allegedly asked one of them to get clothing from the trunk of his car for him. The EMS technician opened a black bag, saw a handgun inside and exclaimed, “He got one gun in here,” according to federal court documents.
Rapozo allegedly replied, “I never asked, I never asked,” followed by, “I didn’t ask nobody. That’s not even my bag, sir.”
Honolulu Police Department officers recovered the handgun, which was described as a black polymer 9mm pistol with no serial number or manufacturer, otherwise known as a “ghost gun.”
Officers also found a magazine from the pistol containing nine rounds of 9mm Luger ammunition.
On May 21, FBI agents interviewed Rapozo and showed him a photo of the firearm and ammunition recovered from his car. Rapozo allegedly admitted to FBI agents that the pistol recovered was his.
“I don’t even know where I got that one from,” Rapozo allegedly told the agents, noting that he “didn’t even know it was in there.”
Rapozo allegedly explained that the gun was “broken” and that it “didn’t even work.”
He allegedly told FBI agents that when he “bought guns on the street” they would sometimes come with a box of ammunition. Rapozo alleged that he would buy ammunition from a store on a particular street because they would not check his identification.
Rapozo was advised of his Miranda rights on Oct. 8 and interviewed again by the FBI. He again allegedly admitted that the gun and ammunition belonged to him but that the weapon was broken, according to court documents.
He also allegedly told the agents that he had “previously been imprisoned for 30 years.”
