Woman gets 20 years
for threats to partnerConnie Aragona forced
her business partner out
at gunpoint
Circuit Judge Michael Town has sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison following her conviction for extortion, robbery, theft and kidnapping in strong-arming a former associate in a lucrative North Shore shrimp wagon business.
Town ordered Connie Aragona, 47, to be taken into custody immediately yesterday to begin serving three 20-year terms for extortion, robbery and kidnapping, and a five-year term for second-degree theft -- all at the same time.
Aragona had asked the judge to allow her to remain free while she appeals her conviction.
A jury found Aragona guilty in June of forcing Troy Nitsche to sign the shrimp wagon business back to her at gunpoint in August 2001 for the same $120,000 sum he paid for it five years earlier.
Prosecutors said Aragona hired three men to threaten Nitsche at her Pearl City office, where he was pistol-whipped and threatened with a gun until he signed the contract out of fear for his family's safety.
Aragona asked that she be allowed to be released on bail to care for her daughter Gabriella, who suffers from an incurable and untreatable medical disease.
"I don't know how much time I can have with her," Aragona said. "I ask for your consideration to be with her whatever time she has left before this disease takes her away from me."
Nitsche asked the judge to deny her request, saying he continues to be afraid for his and his family's safety. Only one of the three men who threatened and assaulted him has been located and arrested.
"Where was her leniency when she put my family in danger and told the men my family were fair game?" Nitsche said.
He says he was afraid enough for his safety that he took a handgun safety class so he is more capable of defending himself and is more aware of his surroundings.
Dwight Lum, Aragona's attorney, said they believe they have substantial grounds for appeal that would result in a new trial on all counts.
Although Town concluded that Aragona was not a flight risk or a danger to the community, he agreed with Deputy Prosecutor Franklin Pacarro that she had received a fair trial and that it was time she served her sentence.
"You have to take your medicine," Town told Aragona. "The real victims here are Troy Nitsche and Gabriella."
