Joshua Gonda is being framed for a July 2008 freeway shooting because he squealed on other gang members about a later home-invasion robbery and shooting, his lawyer David Bettencourt said.

The prosecution says the two events are unrelated.

Gonda, 20, is on trial in Circuit Court on attempted murder and firearm charges for a July 9 shooting on Moanalua Freeway that left a 16-year-old boy paralyzed from the chest down. Police said Gonda and the victim belong to rival gangs.

A month after the freeway shooting, five masked teenagers forced their way into an Aliamanu home. During the robbery, one of the robbers shot a resident, a 19-year-old man, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Police later identified a number of suspects in the robbery but were unable to locate all of them, said Detective Erik Yamane, who was a member of Honolulu Police Department's Crime Reduction Unit in Kalihi at the time.

Yamane said he turned to Gonda, who was a police informant. He said Gonda told police where to find several of the suspects, including admitted shooter Nicholas Nichols.

Nichols pleaded guilty to assault, robbery, kidnapping and burglary and is serving a 30-year prison sentence.

Yamane said police also pretended to arrest Gonda so as not to raise suspicion from the arrested suspects. He said he did not know Gonda was a suspect in the freeway shooting. Police said they had not yet identified Gonda as a suspect.

The prosecution says none of the teenagers who have admitted their participation in the Aliamanu home-invasion robbery have reason to retaliate against Gonda because it was one of them who squealed on the others; Gonda only helped police arrest them.

Deputy City Prosecutor Scott Bell said two teenagers who were in the same car as Gonda and who will testify that he is the shooter were not even involved in the home-invasion robbery.

At the time of the freeway shooting, Gonda was also awaiting sentencing in federal court for selling methamphetamine near Kalihi Uka Elementary School.

A federal judge sentenced him last February to a year and a day in prison.