{"id":136863,"date":"2026-01-16T22:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136863\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T22:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:55:07","slug":"pukas-brother-samson-nacua-didnt-purposely-steal-suv-lasd-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136863\/","title":{"rendered":"Puka’s brother Samson Nacua didn’t purposely steal SUV, LASD says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Samson Nacua<\/a> took a vehicle that didn\u2019t belong to him without permission.<\/p>\n

But he didn\u2019t mean to.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Dept. determined after investigating the events that led to the arrest of Nacua and another man, Trey Rose, for allegedly stealing an SUV belonging to Lakers rookie Adou Thiero<\/a> early Dec. 18.<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u2019s department has asked the L.A. County district attorney not to press charges against Nacua and Rose after determining that the two men thought they were driving a vehicle belonging to Nacua\u2019s younger brother, Rams receiver Puka Nacua<\/a>, a representative for the LASD West Hollywood station told The Times on Friday.<\/p>\n

It turns out the NFL star happens to own an SUV of the same model and color as Thiero\u2019s, only a year or two older, according to the LASD representative. Nacua and Rose thought they were picking up Puka Nacua\u2019s vehicle from a valet parking location in Beverly Hills but ended up with Thiero\u2019s SUV instead. <\/p>\n

The LASD representative called it a case of \u201cmistaken vehicle identity, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thiero does not want to press charges, according to the LASD representative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis matter rose out of a misunderstanding involving a vehicle and was promptly resolved following an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department,\u201d Nacua\u2019s attorneys Michael Goldstein and Jason Lampert said in a statement to The Times. \u201cWe appreciate their efforts and the closure of this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nacua played four years of college football at Utah and one at Brigham Young. A receiver like his brother, Nacua now plays for the United Football League, spending the last two seasons with the now-defunct Michigan Panthers. In April, Nacua received a one-game suspension without pay after video showed him slapping a fan<\/a> at a game.<\/p>\n

He was selected by the Birmingham Stallions in this week\u2019s UFL draft, which included all players who were on active rosters last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samson Nacua took a vehicle that didn\u2019t belong to him without permission. But he didn\u2019t mean to. That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[69610,10772,1321,48,52,51,12833,47,50,49,1555,769,21814,69611,69612,7247,69609,69608,178,72,63662],"class_list":["post-136863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-brother-samson-nacua","tag-charge","tag-college-football","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lasd","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-man","tag-nacua","tag-pay","tag-puka","tag-same-model","tag-suv","tag-thiero","tag-trey-rose","tag-vehicle","tag-year","tag-young-brother"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}