Merced man sentenced to prison for stabbing death

A Merced man was sentenced to 13 years in prison Tuesday for stabbing a man to death in a street fight in 2010, according to court records.

Isaac M. Fonseca, 29, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in Merced County Superior Court. He had been in custody on unrelated robbery charges when police identified him in the July 12, 2010, death of 24-year-old Mario Alberto Zavala, whom police say Fonseca stabbed to death during a fight in the 2300 block of K Street in Merced.

A passer-by found Zavala leaning against a light pole, bleeding, and called police. Zavala died later at a Modesto hospital.

During the trial, relatives of the victim, including several nieces and nephews, read statements in which they described what they miss about Zavala. His older brother, Jorge, said Zavala had been active in the Live Oak community near Santa Cruz before moving to Merced.

“He was a loving uncle and always being involved with neighborhood kids, starting pickup games,” Jorge Zavala told the Sun-Star on Tuesday.

Zavala grew up in Santa Cruz, then moved to Los Banos. He relocated to Merced to attend college about two months before he was killed, according to family members.

“He wasn’t a gang-banger or anything like that,” Jorge Zavala said.

He enjoyed soccer and helped develop an indoor league to keep Santa Cruz-area children out of gangs, Jorge Zavala said.

“He was just really into giving what he could to kids,” he said. “He was very giving and loving, and that was definitely a waste of good talent with this (stabbing).”

Fonseca was originally charged with murder, but pleaded no contest to a lesser crime of manslaughter. Thomas Min, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said police could not find enough cooperative witnesses to pursue the murder charge.

One witness has died since the incident, Min said, and two others moved out of the area and declined to cooperate with law enforcement.

“Based on the evidence we had, (the sentence) was a satisfactory outcome,” Min said.

Fonseca has been arrested more than a dozen times since at least 2007, according to Merced Superior Court records.

He pleaded no contest in August 2007 to a misdemeanor vandalism charge after prosecutors agreed to drop charges of robbery and resisting arrest. He pleaded guilty the following year to a felony assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor street gang charges. He was ordered to serve a year in the county jail, court records show.

In August 2009, Fonseca pleaded guilty to felony grand theft and served 90 days in jail. In December 2010, he pleaded guilty to a felony domestic violence charge and served a year in jail, court records show.

He was arrested numerous times between 2010 and 2012 on various allegations but was never charged in any of the cases.

Fonseca pleaded guilty in September 2013 to a felony count of stalking and was ordered to serve two years in prison.

Fonseca’s attorney, Mark Johnson, did not return requests for comment.

This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Merced man sentenced to prison for stabbing death."