Two men were sentenced to life in prison without parole Wednesday for the murder of a rapper. The killing was part of a chain of retaliatory violence that previously claimed the life of one of the convicted men’s grandmothers, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. Ueta Muasika, also known as Juice Boi, died in the shooting in San Mateo on Oct. 30, 2020. According to an 18-month investigation by the San Mateo Police Department, the motive was revenge. Defendant John Paasi had been in the house when Muasika’s cousin Fifita Tau set fire to a San Mateo home in 2019. Tau was targeting members of the West Side Tonga gang, whom he blamed for violence against members of Tau’s family in the Eastside Shoreview Crips gang. While Paasi and five others were rescued, Paasi’s 86-year-old grandmother Susana Tonga did not make it out alive. “I’m make sure Dey feel my pain,” Paasi later wrote on Instagram. On Oct. 30, 2020 at 9:30 a.m., he and co-defendant Isileli Mahe drove to the home of Muasika and fired 14 shots at him and his 2-year-old son. Muasika died at the scene, while his son was shot once in the face but survived after emergency medical treatment. Mahe received a life sentence plus six years, while Paasi, who has a previous charge of burglary, received a life sentence plus 12 years under California’s Three Strikes law. Both had previously been convicted by a jury in March for assault with a semi-automatic firearm and first-degree murder while lying in wait. Lying in wait is a special circumstance under California law that comes with a mandatory sentence of either life in prison without parole or capital punishment. “Justice was done yesterday,” said District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe. “This was a senseless act that affected the lives of all families, both the families of the victim and the families of the two defendants.” “Not that there’s ever a good reason to take a life. But for this, a minimal motive, they deserve to forfeit their remaining freedom in this lifetime,” Wagstaffe said. Before sentencing, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Michael Wendler heard victim impact statements from five members of Muasika’s family. Wendler ordered both defendants to pay restitution and both were also ordered to undergo genetic marker testing. Paasi and Mahe’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. ...read more read less