Feds charge San Francisco man with having gun when police came to arrest popular rapper

A 29-year-old man has been charged with possessing a gun last year when San Francisco police arrested him while looking for a well-known Bay Area rapper in Sacramento, court records show.

Taisia Fauolo, of Oakley, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and has been detained in the Sacramento Jail while the case is pending, court records show. The criminal complaint says San Francisco police came to Sacramento last year, looking for Reno Fiapoto, aka Tear It Off Greezy, a prominent San Francisco member who was charged with murder in Richmond last April.

Police found Fiapoto and Fauolo that day, near the Township Nine Avenue apartment complex, the complaint says. Prosecutors identified both men as members of Tre-4, a San Francisco gang that has become a major law enforcement target in recent years. Fiapoto was arrested on an unrelated warrant, while Fauolo was arrested after leading police on a brief foot chase, the complaint alleges.

Police later followed Fauolo’s flight path and found a gun, which was linked to him through a DNA test, the complaint says.

Fauolo has been in federal custody before; in 2021 he was sentenced to one year in prison for illegal receipt of a firearm in Nevada, where members of his family live. In that case, Fauolo’s lawyer described him as being part of a family of “fantastic athletes with career’s continuing to the collegiate or even professional level,” including a cousin who played for the Green Bay Packers. Fauolo also showed promise in football, but the 2014 trauma of witnessing a close family member accidentally kill himself with a gun derailed his life, the court filings say.

“I have prayed since then that my son can learn to love again and with prayers, love and encouragement he has started to heal and I am grateful for it,” his mother wrote in a support letter from that case. “I love my son dearly and we miss him very much and truly believe my son deserves a second chance.”