Main, left to right: John Paasi and Isileli Mahe (San Mateo Police Department). Inset: Ueta Muasika (SMPD).
Two California men will spend the rest of their lives behind bars for ambushing a father as he buckled his 2-year-old son into a car seat — killing the dad and shooting the toddler in the face in retaliation for the unrelated killing of one defendant's grandmother.
Isileli Mahe, 34, of Oakland, and John Talia Paasi, 33, of San Mateo, were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after a jury convicted them of first-degree murder, conspiracy and the special circumstance of lying in wait in the October 2020 killing of 30-year-old Ueta Muasika, authorities announced.
According to a news release from the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, Judge Michael K. Wendler handed down the sentences after denying both defendants' motions for a new trial and rejecting a request to ignore Paasi's prior felony strike conviction, prosecutors said. The hearing included victim impact statements from several members of Muasika's family, including his now-8-year-old son, who survived the attack.
Authorities said Mahe and Paasi lay in wait for Muasika on Oct. 30, 2020, before ambushing him and his young son as they entered a vehicle outside the family's home on Eleanor Drive in San Mateo. The pair fired 14 rounds, killing Muasika and striking the 2-year-old boy once in the face.
Jurors convicted both men in March following a 24-day trial.
Prosecutors argued the killing was an act of revenge for the 2019 arson death of Paasi's 85-year-old grandmother, Susana Tonga, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Authorities have said there was no evidence Muasika had any involvement in that crime, which was committed by his cousin, Fifita Tau, who was later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Investigators said Muasika was buckling his son into a car seat in his driveway when a vehicle pulled up and one of the defendants opened fire at close range, San Francisco CW affiliate KRON reported. San Mateo police spent roughly 18 months investigating before arresting Mahe in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Paasi in Honolulu, Hawaii, in April 2022.
Then-Police Chief Ed Barberini reportedly said the shooting "was personal and targeted" and noted that Paasi and Muasika had known each other for more than 15 years.
During the trial, prosecutors acknowledged that they could not determine which defendant actually fired the weapon. However, both men were convicted under California's aiding-and-abetting law, which allows for those who assist in the commission of a murder to be charged with the killing.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the sentencing marked the end of a yearslong pursuit of justice.
"From the time it occurred, it took six years to get to this stage of justice," he told the San Mateo Daily Journal. "The police had to run down these guys in North Carolina, [and] Hawaii, where they were hiding out after they committing the murder, and then it just took forever to get it through the system."
Mahe received life without parole plus six years, while Paasi was sentenced to life without parole plus 12 years because of his prior strike conviction.
Mahe's attorney, Brandon Douglass, said he intends to appeal.
"Mr. Mahe is going to keep fighting — that's all he can do at this point, is hope that the appellate process plays out in his favor," Douglass told the Daily Journal. "I believe that he deserves, at least, another day in court."
The victim's widow, Leslie Munoz, previously said the guilty verdict finally allowed her to reassure the couple's son that the men responsible would never be released.
"I can look at my son and I can tell him now, when he asks me if they're ever going to get out, I can tell him, no, they're not," she told the Daily Journal.