A Bronx man has admitted shooting a fellow detainee on a Mount Vernon prisoner van in October – but his guilty plea offered no new details about how police allowed the gun to get onto the van.
Louis Soto, 32, pleaded guilty in Westchester County Court on Monday, April 13, to first-degree attempted assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, both felonies, as well as endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.
State Supreme Court Justice James McCarty promised Soto seven years in prison and scheduled sentencing for June 15.
Soto was arrested Oct. 15 at an apartment building on South Seventh Avenue on burglary, sex abuse and endangering charges after police were told he had touched a 13-year-old girl in the buttocks and forced his way into the building.
Louis Soto following his arraignment in Mount Vernon City Court Oct. 17, 2025.
After an appearance in Mount Vernon City Court the following day, Soto and four other detainees were put on a van to be transported to the Westchester County jail by two Mount Vernon police officers. When the van got to Oak Street and Lincoln Avenue, a few blocks from police headquarters, a single gunshot was heard and one of the men in the back said he was hit. The officers returned to headquarters, where the victim was found to have a gunshot wound to the leg and police recovered a .22 caliber revolver from Soto.
The two officers who were in the van, Omar Bryce and Sonjea Collins, a supervisor, Sgt. Joseph Diaz, and two other officers, Christian Pacheco and Cody Housen, were suspended pending an investigation. Collins, a probationary officer, was later fired. Diaz and Housen remained on modified duty as of late March. Bryce and Pacheco were restored to full duty earlier this year.
Deputy Chief Gregory Addison said recently that a final report on the investigation into how the gun got onto the van had not been completed.
Crime: Shooting in back of Mount Vernon police prisoner transport van under investigation
Soto’s lawyer, Jean-Robert Auguste, said he could only speculate about how the gun went off in the van or whether the man who was shot had been targeted. He said Soto had been threatened by that man in the holding area related to what Soto was charged with.
He said that when the officers brought the van back to headquarters video showed Soto’s pants being pulled down and the gun falling out.
Soto agreed to waive indictment as Auguste negotiated a disposition of the two cases. The lawyer said his client had been intoxicated at the time of the initial arrest and that he did not think the burglary and sex allegations would have held up if prosecutors pursued them.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Bronx man pleads guilty in shooting in Mount Vernon police van