A criminal grand jury has indicted two men accused of the 2020 murder of Ueta Savelio Muasika Jr. in San Mateo, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
John “Talia” Paasi and Isileli Mahe are accused of a deliberate execution-style shooting of Muasika on Oct. 30, 2020, on the 1600 block of Eleanor Drive in San Mateo’s 19th Avenue Park neighborhood, motivated by the 2019 arson murder of Paasi’s grandmother by Muasika’s cousin Fifita Tau, the DA’s Office said. San Mateo police said Tau set the fire because he thought it was the residence of rival West Side Tonga Gang members, who he blamed for violence against family members in the Eastside Shoreview Crips.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the grand jury indictment would save time in the court process and effectiveness, as dealing with the preliminary hearing stage in major cases can often take between six months to a year. The indictment also allows the DA’s Office to only have one trial instead of two to speed up the process, ensuring witnesses only have to testify once.
“We want to make sure we try them together, and the best way to do that is to indict them,” Wagstaffe said.
Muasika was shot several times in the driveway of his residence on Eleanor Drive on the morning of Oct. 30 after being ambushed, with his 2-year-old son suffering from a gunshot wound to his face. The child recovered from his injuries, but Muasika was declared dead at the scene. Muasika was also a local rap artist known as Juice Boi. An 18-month investigation led to the arrest of Paasi in Charlotte, North Carolina, while Mahe was arrested in Honolulu. Following an extradition process, the pair are now in the San Mateo County Jail. The two men have been charged with murder, with a special circumstance for lying in wait, the DA’s Office said. Both are eligible to be sentenced to life without parole or death, however, Wagstaffe said he won’t be pursuing the death penalty.
Wagstaffe said it is rare to have a grand jury indictment, with one occurring in the county court system on an average of about once a year. The pair appeared in court on May 23 for the pretrial conference. The case is set on Oct. 6 for the trial readiness conference and for jury trial assignment.
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