SAN FRANCISCO — In the latest example of federal prosecutors targeting people with suspected ties to the so-called Tre-4 gang, a San Francisco resident has been hit with felony federal gun possession charges, court records show.
Willie Lefiti was indicted in late April in Berkeley in connection with robbery and burglary investigations in San Francisco. Federal prosecutors in the Bay Area have also charged him with being a felon in possession of a loaded pistol allegedly discovered during his arrest. Prosecutors tried and failed to keep Lefiti behind bars while the case is pending, arguing he has violated prior court orders and wouldn’t show up to his hearings if he’s freed.
Lefiti has made all his court appearances since being released from federal custody on April 20. Records show that his next court date has been set for June 21.
Federal prosecutors have taken an interest in Tre-4 — which is based in San Francisco — since 2020, when authorities attributed several shootings to a violent rivalry between the gang and another San Francisco gang known as DBG, or Down Below Gang.
Prosecutors allege that in April 28, 2020, 23-year-old Henry Texada, of Oakland, was shot and killed in Oakland because of his affiliation with DBG. The next day, an alleged Tre-4 member named Reno Fiapoto was shot and killed on the Bay Bridge, near Fremont Street.
In the weeks after Fiapoto was killed, his gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma became a target for violence, the records say. Colma police investigated “several shootings and other criminal behavior” there in June and July, according to the documents. Federal prosecutors subsequently charged several suspected Tre-4 members with gun possession in various unrelated incidents.
In Lefiti’s case, on June 16, 2021 San Francisco officers tracked his cellphone to Angeline’s Louisiana Kitchen in Berkeley; they arrested him there. He’s charged with having a pistol equipped with a loaded, 29-round magazine during that arrest.
Source: www.mercurynews.com