Man accused of murder after victim's choked to death in fight
Criminal complaint accuses Leonardo Soulett of assault in front of daughter
Prosecutors have filed a murder charge against a former amateur mixed martial arts fighter they say beat, then fatally choked another man during a fight that erupted in front of several witnesses and his young daughter at a West San Jose liquor store.
Leonardo Soulett, 32, of San Jose was charged Thursday. The murder charge filed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office includes several potential sentencing enhancements based on the violence of the killing and the fact he is currently on probation for a 2023 criminal conviction.
He was scheduled for arraignment Thursday, but he did not appear in court; a deputy public defender and a bailiff said in court that he was not transported because he was “unstable.” The hearing was postponed to Friday.
Soulett was arrested after the noontime encounter Monday at Williams Liquor on Leigh Avenue. Officers responding to a report of a fight found an unresponsive man lying on the floor of the store, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. His name has not been released by coroner's officials, but a probable cause affidavit — written by San Jose police and attached to the criminal charging complaint — identified him as Zachariah Fierro.
According to the affidavit authored by Detective Jose Montoya, multiple witness accounts and surveillance video from the store illustrated a sequence of events that began with Soulett entering the business with his 4-year-old daughter. A brief conversation took place between Soulett and Fierro.
“Without warning, the suspect (Soulett) ripped the victim's (Fierro) shirt off his body and punched him, knocking him to the floor,” Montoya wrote. “The victim fell facefirst on the floor and then (Soulett) applied a rear-naked choke hold on the victim for approximately 8 minutes, killing the victim.”
There is no indication that any of the witnesses or a store security guard intervened while the alleged choking unfolded.
Soulett is a former amateur MMA fighter who fought out of Gilroy and had a 1-2 record in official bouts. His last sanctioned fight was in 2018.
Court records show he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 2021 related to a May 2020 incident at a Sunnyvale home construction site where he viciously beat a co-worker — who is related to Soulett's wife — and tried to strangle him with a ratchet strap.
He pleaded no contest and served just under a year in county jail for that crime.
In August 2022, court and police records show Soulett went on a rampage through a Morgan Hill grocery store in which kicked in a bathroom door, throwing a can of paint at a wall, throwing bottles of soda on the floor and throwing assorted construction materials out into the street. A police report stated that after his arrest and as he was being driven to jail, he was screaming and trying to hit his head on the walls of a patrol vehicle.
Soulett was sentenced in January 2023 to a short jail sentence — his jail time already served was factored — and probation after he was convicted of felony vandalism and misdemeanor battery on a peace officer.
Other court records show he is currently being sued by child welfare officials for failure to pay child support for the daughter who was on hand for the Monday homicide.