A face-tattooed Maori cop who was once promoted as a recruitment success story has admitted stealing a New Zealand Police handgun and selling it to a criminal associate for $5,000.
Steven John Karehana, 42, starred in a YouTube series called Ride Along, where he revealed he had been repeated rejected from the force due to a criminal charge from his youth, and talked about wanting to be a “role model” for young Maoris and inspire them to join the police.
Karehana appeared in Whanganui District Court on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to stealing a police-issued firearm and being in unlawful possession of a police-issued firearm, and a suppression order preventing his name from being published was lifted, The New Zealand Herald reported.
The court heard a March audit of police firearms in the Central District policing area in Whanganui confirmed that a Glock worth NZ$1,204 had been stolen on February 11 this year.
Karehana, who had asked an associate if they could “get rid of a gun” if he could obtain one, took two Glocks and two M4 rifles from the gun safe at Whanganui Police Station and put them in lockboxes in a police car, and travelled with a colleague to a site where his team was based.
That afternoon he returned to the station alone, took a Glock from the gun safe, and put it in his backpack. He then gave the firearm to his associate, who sold it to another person for $10,000 in cash.
Karehana was given $5,000 that evening, and the court heard that he claimed he “did not know that his associate was going to on-sell the weapon”.
When the Glock was recovered in June, Karehana was spoken to by police but denied stealing the gun.
During an episode of the Ride Along series, which has since been removed from the internet, Karehana spoke about joining the police in 2023 as an older recruit.
“So I first applied in 2003, and I was denied because of what had happened in my youth, and I applied probably every five years after that until I got a job as a painter, and I stayed in that job for 16 years,” he said.
“It wasn’t until I went and worked for my iwi [Maori kinship group], and through that journey, it reignited the love and passion for my community and my people.”
He said in a different recruitment campaign that the rejection was for a criminal charge for which he was given a diversion.
Karehana was granted bail with conditions including that he surrender his passport, and will be sentenced on December 4.
Header image: Left, right, Karehane in Ride Along (New Zealand Police).
