Robbery defendant
pursued in other cases

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By Rod Antone
Star Bulletin

A convicted felon who had been on the run from Honolulu police for about a week was indicted yesterday by a state grand jury.

Arthur Birano was charged with robbery, kidnapping, burglary and several firearms violations after threatening a couple at gunpoint May 16.

The indictment says Birano, along with Nicolas Nakano and Bryce Takara, confronted the couple in the parking garage of a Kewalo Street apartment building and forced the male victim to let them into his apartment. Police said the victim escaped via the lanai while the defendants searched his apartment.

Police had been looking for Birano since May 9 in connection with two separate incidents that morning involving a drive-by shooting on Piikoi Street and his leaving the scene of an accident along Pensacola Street.

Between the incidents on May 9 and Birano's arrest for the robbery, police said they had spotted Birano in Waipahu. There, they said, he escaped by jumping out of the second-story window of an apartment building.

Birano is the only one of the three charged who faces firearms violations, including being a felon in possession and being in possession of an prohibited firearm, an assault pistol.

Birano is being held in lieu of $450,000 bail. Nakano is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail and Takara, in lieu of $11,000 bail.