Two men charged in Saturday's Chinatown murder were ordered held without bail yesterday after a prosecutor called them dangers to the community and flight risks and described the crime as "very heinous and very atrocious and very violent."

Iosefa M. Pasene, 21, and Zorro R. Rye, 24, were indicted yesterday on charges of murdering Joseph Peneueta, 35, at 4:10 a.m. near the corner of River and Pauahi streets.

Deputy prosecutor Sean Sanada said both defendants are from San Francisco and should be considered flight risks.

Circuit Judge Derrick Chan canceled an earlier bail of $1 million for each defendant and ordered them held without bail.

"Based on the representations of the prosecutor, no amount of bail will assure their appearance in court," Chan said.

Sanada said Pasene and Rye "chased and gunned down an unarmed victim." Sanada accused Pasene of shooting Peneueta "in the back at close range."

He called both men "a significant threat to the public and community."

According to court records, Rye came to Hawai'i in early 2008 from San Francisco.

His grandfather, Robert Rye, said by telephone yesterday morning that his grandson "was a good kid who never got in trouble" even though "my son and his wife didn't really take care of him when he was growing up."

Zorro Rye "basically raised himself" and was a good student and football player in high school in San Francisco, Robert Rye said.

He also said Pasene was a friend of Zorro Rye's in San Francisco. Pasene "got in a lot of trouble" as a young man in the Bay Area, according to the elder Rye.

Both defendants and the victim have records of involvement in illegal drugs.

Rye had been free on $35,000 bail pending sentencing for first-degree promotion of a dangerous drug, according to court records.

When he was arrested by police in that case in March 2008, he said he was a San Francisco resident who had come to Hawai'i two months earlier.

Rye pleaded guilty in November but his sentencing was delayed three times — twice in January and again this month — after his attorney asked for continuances to allow Rye to enroll in a drug treatment program.

Circuit Judge Steven Alm granted the continuances over the objections of deputy prosecutor Kimberly Iopa, court records show.

Rye's lawyer, Myles Breiner, said at a court hearing earlier yesterday that he believes Rye and Pasene were friends of Peneueta.

Breiner said Rye, who has a girlfriend and child in Honolulu, will present an alibi defense in the murder case.

Breiner said he had hoped that Rye would receive a sentence of probation in the pending drug case, which is now set for a hearing April 8.

Pasene, who has no local address, was charged earlier this week with a co-defendant, Antonius Toloai, in a case of third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug.

Peneueta, the murder victim, had been in and out of state and federal prisons since 1998 for drug offenses, according to court records.

In 2003, a year after Peneueta was paroled from state prison for a crack cocaine conviction, he was indicted on federal cocaine charges. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Ezra in early 2004 to two years in prison. Peneueta was also ordered to complete 500 hours of intensive drug treatment.

With credit for time served, Peneueta was released from the federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., in 2005 and was soon back in trouble for violating the terms of his supervised release, the federal term for parole.

Peneueta tested positive for cocaine use and Ezra in June 2005 sent him to the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu for a six-month stay behind bars.

After completing that sentence, Peneueta was back in the community but was in trouble again in late 2006, this time for associating with a known felon and for repeatedly violating the rules of a home-detention program.

In February 2007, Ezra sent him back to prison for 18 months.

He was released from the U.S. prison in Atwater, Calif., last year. Because he had completed his maximum sentence for the 2003 conviction, he was no longer subject to supervision by federal authorities.